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WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 




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\yiTH OUR SOLDIERS 
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Sherwood Eddy 

Author of "Suffering and Ihe War," "The Students of Asia," etc. 



ASSOCIATION PRESS 

New York: 114 East i8th Stwit 
1917 






COPTBIGHT, 1917, BT 

The International Committee or 
Young RIen's Christian As30Ciation8 



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NOV -15 1917 




0^?!.A47g 


089 


*Vi.^ 


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To M. H. E. 

AND THE Real Heroes of the War 

THE Mothers Who Have Given Their Sons 

AND the Wives Who Have Given Their Husbands 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAOa 

Foreword ix 

I. At the Front 1 

n. With General Pershing's Force in 

France 21 

III. A Day in the "Bull Ring" 43 

IV. With the British Army 57 

V. Life in a Base Camp 87 

VI. The Camp of the Prodigals Ill 

VII. Religion at the Front 127 

VIII. The World at War 169 



FOREWORD 

The world is at war. Already more than a 
score of uations, representing a population of 
over a thousand millions, or two-thirds of the 
entire human race, are engaged in a life-and- 
death struggle on the bloody battlefields of 
Europe, Asia, and Africa. No man can stand 
in the mouth of that volcano on a battle front, 
or meet the trains pouring in with their weary 
freight of wounded after a battle, or stand by the 
operating tables and the long rows of cots in the 
hospitals, or share in sympathy the hardship and 
suffering of the men who are fighting for us, and 
remain unmoved. The man must be dead of soul 
to whom the war does not present a mighty moral 
challenge. It arraigns our past manner of life 
and our ver}* civilization. It gives us a new angle 
of observation, a new point of view, a new test 
of values. It furnishes a possible moral judg- 
ment by which we can weigh our life in the 
balance and see where we have been found want- 
ing. 

These brief sketches are only fragmentary and 
have of necessity been hastily written. The writer 
has been asked to state his imjjression of the 
work among the men in France. lie did not go 
there to write but to work. He has tried simply 

ix 



X FOREWORD 

to state what he saw and to leave the reader to 
draw his own conclusions. A mere statement of 
the grim facts at the front, if they are not sugar- 
coated or glossed over, may not be pleasant read- 
ing, but it is unfair to those at home that they 
should not know the hard truth of the reality of 
things as they are. 

Before the war broke out, it was the writer's 
privilege to make an extended tour for work 
among students in Russia, Turkey, Bulgaria, 
Serbia, and Greece, and to visit Germany. Since 
the declaration of war, he has visited France, 
Italy, and Egypt, and has observed the effect of 
the war throughout Asia, in tours extending over 
nearly the whole of China and India. Last year 
he was in the British camps among the soldiers 
of England, Scotland, and Wales. Since Amer- 
ica declared war he has been working with the 
various divisions of the British and American 
armies in France, from the great base camps, 
where hundreds of thousands of men are in train- 
ing, up to the front with the men in the trenches. 

For the sake of those who will follow with 
deep interest the boys who are already in France, 
or who will shortly be there, brief accounts are 
given of the various phases of a soldier's life in 
the base camps, the training school of the "Bull 
Ring," at the front, and in the hospitals. 



AT THE FRONT 



CHAPTER I 
AT THE FRONT 

In the midst of our work at a base camp, there 
came a sudden call to go "up the line" to the 
great battle front. Leaving the railway, we took 
a motor and pressed on over the solidly paved 
roads of France, which are now pulsing arteries 
of trattic, crowded with trains of motor transports 
pouring in their steady stream of supplies for the 
men and munitions for the guns. Now we turn out 
for the rumbling tank-like caterpillai'S, which 
slowly ci-eep forward, drawing the big guns up 
to the front ; then we pass a light field-battery. 
Next comes a battalion of Tommies swinging down 
the road, loaded like Christmas trees with their 
cumbrous kits, sweating, singing, whistling, as 
they march by with dogged cheer toward the 
trenches. 

We have crossed the Somme with its memories 
of blood, on across northei*n France, and now we 
have passed the Belgian frontier and are in the 
historic fields of Flanders, where the creaking 
windmills are still grinding the peasants' corn, 
and the little church s})ires stand guard over the 
sleeping villages. A turn of the road brings us 
close within sound of the guns, which by night are 
heard far across France and along the coasts of 

3 



4 WITH OUK SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

England. Soon we enter villages, which lie within 
range of the enemy's ''heavies," with their shat- 
tered window glass, torn roofs, ruined houses, 
tottering churches, and deep shell holes in the 
streets. Now we are in the danger zone and have 
to put on our shrapnel-proof steel helmets, and 
box respirators, to be ready for a possible attack 
of poison gas. 

Another turn in the road, and the great battle 
field rises in grim reality before us. Far to the 
left stands the terrible Ypres salient, so long 
swept by the tide of war, and away to the right 
are the blasted woods of "Plug Street." Right 
before us rises the historic ridge of Messines, won 
at such cost during the summer. We are stand- 
ing now at the foot of the low ridge where the 
British trenches were so long held under the 
merciless fire of the enemy. From here to the 
top of the ridge the ground has been fought over, 
inch by inch and foot by foot. It is blasted and 
blackened, deep seamed by shot and shell. The 
trees stand on the bare ridge, stiff and stark, 
charred and leafless, like lonely sentinels of the 
dead. The ground, without a blade of grass left, 
is torn and tossed as by earthquake and volcano. 
Trenches have been blown into shapeless heaps 
of debris. Deep shell holes and mine craters mark 
the advance of death. Small villages are left 
without one stone or brick upon another, mere 
formless heaps, ground almost to dust. Deserted 
in wild confusion, half buried in the churned mud, 



AT THE FRONT 5 

on eveiy hand are heaps of unused aminunitiou, 
bombs, {xas shells, and inl'ei'nal machines wrecked 
or hurriedly left iu the enemy's llight. 

Ilere on June 7th, at three o'clock in the morn- 
iug, following the heavy bombardment which had 
been going on for days, the great attack began. 
In one division alone the heavy guns had fired 
40,000 shells and the field artillery 180,000 more. 
The sound of the tiring was heard across France, 
throughout Belgium and Holland, and over the 
Surrey downs of England, 130 miles away. 

The Messines ridge is a long, low hill, only 
about 300 feet iu height, but it commands the 
countryside for miles around, and had become the 
heavily fortified barrier to bar the Allied advance 
between Ypres and Armentiers. Since December, 
11)14, the Germans had seamed the western slopes 
with trenches, a network of tunnels ^tind of con- 
crete redoubts. Behind the ridge lay the German 
batteries. For months this ridge had been mined 
and countermined by both sides, until the English 
had placed 500 tons of high explosive, that is 
approximately 1,000,000 pounds of ammiuol, be- 
neath nineteen strategic points which were to be 
taken. At the foot of the ridge, along a front of nine 
miles, the British had concentrated their batterie.s, 
heavy gun.s, and vast supplies of ammunition. 
Day and night for a week before the battle began, 
the German positions had bcM?n shelled. At times 
the hurricane of fire died down, but it never 



6 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

ceased. By day and by night the German trenches 
were raided and explored. A large fleet of tanks 
was ready for the advance. Hundreds of aviators 
cleared the air and dropped bombs upon the 
enemy, assailing his ammunition dumps, aero- 
dromes, and bases of supplies. The battle had to 
be fought simultaneously by all the forces on the 
land, in the air, and in the mines underground. 
All the horrors of the cyclone and the earthquake 
were harnessed for the conflict. 

In the early morning, a short, deathly silence 
followed the week's terrific bombardment. At 
2:50 a. m. the ground opened from beneath, as 
nineteen great mines were exploded one by one, 
and fountains of fire and earth like huge vol- 
canoes leaped into the air. Hill 60, which had 
dealt such deadly damage to the British, was 
rent asunder and collapsed. It was probably the 
greatest explosion man ever heard on earth up 
to that time. Then the guns began anew to pre- 
pare for the attack and a carefully planned bar- 
rage dropped just in front of the English bat- 
talions as they advanced. As the men came for- 
ward, the barrage was lifted step by step and 
dropped just ahead of them, to pulverize the 
enemy and protect the British troops. By five 
o'clock Messines itself was captured by the fear- 
less Australians. There was a most desperate 
struggle just here where we were standing at 
Wytschaete. All morning the battle raged along 
this line, but by midday it was in the hands of 



AT THE FRONT 7 

the dashing Irish division. Seven thousand pris- 
oners were taken, while the British casualties, 
owing to the effective protection of their terrific 
barrage, were far less than the German and only 
one-fifth of what they had calculated as necessary 
to take this strategic position. 

We make our way up to the crest of the Mes- 
sines ridge where we can look back on the con- 
quered territory and forward to the new lines. 
The great guns are in action all about us. They 
are again wearing down the enemy in preparation 
for the next advance. For the moment we feel 
only the grand and awful throb of vast titanic 
forces in terrible conflict. Day and night, in the 
air, on the earth, and beneath it, the war is slowly 
or swiftly being waged. The fire of battle smol- 
ders or leaps into flames or vast explosions, but 
never goes out. 

Above us the very air is full of conflict. Hang- 
ing several hundred feet high are half a dozen 
huge fixed kite-balloons, with their occupants 
busily observing, sketching, mapping, or report- 
ing the enemj^'s movements. Each of these is a 
target for the attacking aeroplanes and the occu- 
pants must be ready, at a moment's notice, to leap 
into a parachute when they are shot down. High 
above these balloons a score of British planes are 
darting about or dashing over the enemy's lines, 
acting as the eyes of the huge guns hidden away 
behind us. We are looking at one far up seem- 



8 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

ingly soaring in peace like a graceful bird poised 
in the air, when suddenly we see it surrounded by 
a dozen little white patches of smoke which show 
that it has come within range of the enemy's anti- 
aircraft guns and the clouds of shrapnel are burst- 
ing about it. Most of them break wide of the 
mark and it sails on unscathed over the enemy's 
lines. Just above us is hanging a German tauhe, 
obviously watching us and the automobile which 
we had left below in the road, while the British 
huge anti-aircraft guns near by are feeling for 
it, shot after shot. 

We duck into our little Y M C A dugout, just 
under the crest of the ridge. It is an old, deserted 
German pit for deadly gas shells, which even now 
are lying about uncomfortably near, in heaps still 
unexploded. Here the men going to and from the 
trenches, come in for hot tea or coffee and re- 
freshments night and day. A significant sign 
forbids more than thirty men to congregate at 
once in this exposed spot, as sometimes these 
Y M C A dugouts are blown to atoms by a shell. 
The one down below in 'Tlug Street" has been 
blown to bits, and the man in the one just up the 
line has been under such fire for several days that 
he will have to abandon his dugout. 

Just in front of us over the ridge is the first 
line of the present British front. There is no 
time to build trenches now or to dig themselves 
in. They just hold the broken line of unconnected 
shell holes, or swarm in the great craters which 



AT THE FRONT 9 

are held by rapid fire machine guns. The men 
go out bj night to relieve those who have been 
holding the ground during the previous day. It 
is harder for the enemy's artillery to locate and 
destroy men scattered in these irregular holes 
and craters than if they were in a clear line of 
trenches. Tlic British front faces down the slope 
toward the bristling German lines, dotted with 
hidden snipei*s and studded with sputtering 
machine gims. As the evening falls the batteries 
behind and all about us open fire. Flash after 
flash of spurting flame leaps out from the great 
guns. Boom upon boom, deep voiced and varied, 
follows from the many calibred guns in the dark- 
ness, till the night is lurid and the ground be- 
neath us quivers with the earthquake of bombard- 
ment. 

High above we hear the piercing shriek of the 
shells speeding to their fatal mark, and below 
the crash of the exploding shells of the enemy, 
which toss the earth in dark waves into the air 
in the black surf of war. Gun after gun now 
joins the great chorus, swelling and falling in a 
hideous symphony of discordant sounds. The 
whole horizon is lit up and aflame. The sky 
quivers and reflects the flash of the great guns, 
as with the constant vibration of heat lightning. 
Flares and Verey lights of greenish yellow and 
white turn the night into ghastly day, and like 
the lurid flames of an inferno light up the battle- 
field, while the rifles crackle in the glare. Here a 



10 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

parachute-light like a great star hangs suspended 
almost motionless above us, lighting up the whole 
battlefield, and now a burning farmhouse or ex- 
ploding ammunition dump illuminates the sky as 
from some vast subterranean furnace flung open 
upon the heavens. All the long sullen night the 
earth is rocked by slow intermittent rumbling, 
till with the silent dawn the birds wake and the 
war-giants sink for a few hours in troubled sleep. 
Then the new day breaks and the war-planes 
climb in the clear morning air to begin the battle 
afresh. 

But let us turn from the hard-won ground of 
Messines to some of the men who fought over it 
and survived. Here is a young American, Fred 

R , a graduate of Johns Hopkins, who fought 

in this battle with the Canadians, and who told 
us in his own words the story of those brief hours. 

"Our opening barrage lasted about twenty 
minutes, but in that short time some two million 
shells were dropped on the enemy from about nine 
thousand of our guns. We could hear no distinct 
reports, just one steady roar of continuous ex- 
plosion. The ground shook beneath us and frag- 
ments from the trenches and dugouts caved in 
about us from the shock. The air was oppressive 
and you felt difficulty in breathing, as if you were 
in a vacuum. 

About three o'clock in the morning the order 
came to 'Stand to!' and shortly after the word 
rang out 'Up and over! Over the top boys, and 
the best of luck !' With one foot on the fire step 
we climbed out of the deep trench and with our 



AT THE FRONT 11 

rifles we started forward at a walk, behind our 
advaiu'iiif; banaf^e. I was tense now an<l all of 
a tit'iiiblc. At a time like this every man is <lriven 
to bis <li'('i»('st (iiouj^lits. It is not fear exactly, 
but apjireiilieiisioii iiiid di-ead of the unknown. 

As we started forward, one yo\nig l)(»y fell at 
my si<le. I heard him call, '(), Mother I' as he fell. 
Another cried, 'O, (Jod !' and sank down on the 
other side. Then my partner, a boy of eij^hteen, 
fell, both lejjs blown away above the knee. I 
bound uj> his wounds and carrier! him on my back 
to the nearest dressing station. 'Fred,' he said, 
'would you mind kissing me just once? So long!' 
and with that he was gone. Then T got mad and 
began to see red. In the first trench I ran amuck 
and with rifle, bayonet, and bombs I suppose I 
accounted for twenty men in the hour that fol- 
lowed. 

I've been gassed three times, twice with the 
old gas and once with the new, and I've had my 
.share. Would I like to go home now? Say, I'd 
rather be a lamp-post at the foot of Michigan 
Boulevard in Chicago than the whole electric 
light system in all the rest of the universe!" 

We turned from this young American to Sapper 

W , of Western Canada, who had just been 

through the same battle underground, and asked 
him to tell us his own story. 

"Well, sir, long before the battle we were dig- 
ging under Ilill Number GO. A chance shell ex- 
ploded on the surface above us and buried us 
all underground. Three of us were killeti and 
the other two left alive. I had one man across 
my chest and another across my legs, one dead 
and the other wounded. We could not move hand 



12 WITH OUE SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

or foot. We were buried in there for seven hours 
and they finally dug us out unconscious. 

Then we started another sap to lay a mine. 
My pal was listening, with an iron rod driven in 
the ground and two copper wires leading from 
it to a head piece, such as a wireless operator 
uses, so that we could hear the approach of the 
enemy's sappers, who were countermining against 
us. My pal asked me to come and listen. But 
I had hardly got the headpiece on when I said, 
'O Lord, they're on us !' and before I could get 
fie thing off my ears the end of our sap fell 
through and the Germans were at us. There was 
only room to use revolvers and bayonets in that 
dark hole and the Germans seemed to get nervous 
and could not shoot straight in the panic. We 
lost only one of our men, but we killed seven and 
took the rest of the twenty prisoners. Then, be- 
fore they found out what had happened, we 
crawled through to the German end of the tunnel 
and blew up their sap. 

You say was I a Christian? Not me! I was 
wild and going to the devil. But one night I 
was wounded and lay in a deserted shell hole, shot 
through the thigh, and unable to move for fifteen 
hours. I was feeling for a cigarette in my pocket 
to ease the pain a bit, but all I could find was a 
little pocket testament which someone had given 
me, but which I had never read. I managed to 
get it out and, thinking it might be my last hour, 
and that I might never be found, I started to read 
to try and forget my wound. I read the twenty- 
seventh chapter of Matthew, and sir, that little 
book changed my life. I have read a chapter 
every day since then. I was picked up by the 
infantry and carried to a hospital. One night 
when I could not sleep for the pain, the nurse 



AT THE FRONT 13 

asked nic if slic cduld do anytliiiij^ for ine, and I 
asked her lo read tlu; Hihie fo nic She said she 
had never read it in her life, and I said it was 
about time she bej^an, if that was so. After she 
read it, slie said it helped her too. Yes, I say 
my prayers on my knees in the tent now. Another 
boy has joined me this week; and the lanfjna^e 
in the tent is gettiiif; better. I'm otT to the front 
tomorrow to take my tui-n ajjain. But I'm no 
longer alone up there in the trenches. It's dif- 
ferent now." 

We have heard the story of one in the infantry 
and of a sapper underground. Here is the ex- 
perience of a young Canadian student from Mc- 
Gill University in the artillery: 

"The past weeks have been ten thousand hells. 
It is nothing but death, noise, blood, and mud. 
There are only two of our sergeants left now 
and we have to keep up our spirits. You often 
feel as if your brain would burst. I couldn't 
begin to describe the inferno human beings pass 
through every day. 'Happy' was shot to pieces 
with a shell a few nights ago while in bed, both 
arms and one leg otf. I carried him for over 
four hours to the nearest dressing station and 
then stayed and watched him die. He never 
whimpered. Though in terrible agony, he died 
game, as he always was. That is about the hard- 
est knock I have ever had in my life. He is only 
one of my many friends that have gone. Believe 
me, war is Hell.'' 

Here is the account of a simple Australian boy 

in the front trench : 

"Fritz had a machine gun to nearly every ten 



14 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

yards. I don't know what became of my friends 
Hugh and Bill. They were just beside me, but 
when I looked around both were gone. A shell 
landed just at the side of me, and I think Hugh 
and Bill were blown to pieces. I got my wound 
in the chest and the fragment came out through 
my back. I thought my last day had come. I 
dropped into a hole, and no sooner had I got in, 
than Mack got it through the face. He was able 
to go back, but I was simply helpless, as my legs 
refused to move. Anyhow, I pulled the shovel 
off my back and dug a little ridge in the side of 
the trench. No sooner had I done this than Fritz 
started to bombard. One shell fell in the hole 
in which I was, but exploded in the opposite 
direction. Then another came and landed just 
above my head, but it failed to go off. Had it 
gone off I never would have been here now. I 
had prayed hard to my God to deliver me from 
my enemies and when those things happened I 
felt my prayer was heard and that I was going 
to come through. I was there in that hole all 
day and the next night before anyone came near 
me. At last one of the 19th Battalion chaps came 
along and went for a stretcher for me." 

Such are the varying impressions which a battle 
makes upon various men. It is no romance, but 
a grim reality of life and death. Far into the 
night we lie awake and ask ourselves, what is the 
meaning of it all? 

At first on the field of battle one thrills at the 
sound of mighty and unearthly forces loosed, but 
in the din we suddenly realize that boys are 
dying all about us, and that these guns bear swift 



AT THE FRONT 16 

death aii<l niangliiiij to siitrering men. Between 
us and the enemy are just a few deep shell holes 
and a thin red lino of flesh and blood, as a human 
rampart, foi-med of men who hold their lives in 
their hands, ready to make the great sacrifice. 
Behind us are the hidden guns and the siipport 
trenches in the narrow strip of hard-won terri- 
tory. Behind these are the moving columns on 
the long roads, the pulsing arteries of traffic, and 
the moving troop trains on the rails. Behind 
these in turn are the plying ships, the millions 
of toiling workers, and the suffering hearts of the 
uatit)ns in arms. Whole nations — yes, almost the 
whole of humanity — are organized for war and 
dragged into deadly conflict as by some devil's 
behest, instead of being organized for brother- 
hood and the building of a better world. Oh, not 
for this devil's work were men made. Surely 
mankiml must come to its own in these birth 
pangs of a new era. Never, never again must a 
whole humanity of the free-born sons of God be 
<lragged into the hell of war to sate the pride or 
pomp of kings, or to glut the ambition of schem- 
ing secret groups who have taught men that they 
are created as obedient slaves. 

Far behind us, marking the slow advance up 
this ridge of death, are the sheltered cemeteries 
of white crosses that tell the ])rice that has al- 
ready been paid. There are five thousand crowded 
graves in yonder acre alone. fJreat is the price, 
awful in its .solid weight of agony. This is no 



16 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

longer a war between two peoples, but between 
two principles ; it is as much to free the German 
people as to protect ourselves. It is not for this 
narrow strip of hard-won soil, but for every foot 
of a world that from henceforth must be free. 
The men who are fighting on grounds of moral 
principle would rather pay any price than lie at 
ease under the false shadow of militarism, ma- 
terialism, and grasping greed. These men are 
fighting, and many of them know that they are 
fighting, for a new world. Not only military op- 
pression, but industrial oppression, must go. Not 
only German militarism, and Russian autocracy, 
and Turkish cruelty must be done away; but 
American materialism must be purged in the 
fiery furnace of this war. Its purposes will reach 
far beyond our ken, and though man's sin alone 
has caused the war, its issues are in the hands 
of God. The whole war has been a demonstration 
of the result of leaving God out of His world. 
The world with God left out leaves war; and life 
with God left out leaves hell. 

There must be a turning to God in our own 
national life. We speak of the menace of Ger- 
man militarism, but what is militarism but armed 
and aggressive materialism, the deeper principle 
which lies behind it? And what is materialism 
but organized selfishness? Materialism and self- 
ishness are the dangers of our own land as well 
as of Germany. And the war is a call to set our 
own house in order. 



AT THE FRONT 17 

America ?an no longer live to herself alone. 
She is fighting for the fi-eedoni of humanity. 
Here on the very Held of battle, at the throbbing 
heart of the conflict, we ask ourselves, What is 
the real issue of the war? What are they fighting 
for? 

Away there in Austria a young crown prince, 
Francis Ferdinand, was murdered. It was the 
spark which set oil' the i)owder mine of Europe. 
But not for him are they fighting. Behind him 
stood the two contending forces of the growing 
nationalism of Serbia and the expanding com- 
mercialism of Austria. These two forces clashed 
in conflict, but not for them are they fighting. 
Behind these stood two greater powers, those of 
pan-Germanism and pan-Slavism, a growing Ger- 
many and a rising Russia, which like a vast 
glacier for a thousand years had sought the open 
sea. The ambitions of these two powers clashed 
in conflict at Constantinople and elsewhere. But 
not for them are they fighting. 

On the western front there were two deeper 
principles in conflict, those of autocracy and 
democracy, the question whether one man and a 
sinister, hidden group of plotting militarists 
could drag the whole world into war and cru.sh 
its liberties and its laws beneath the iron heel 
of despotism, or whether man as man should stand 
erect in his God-given right of freedom and work 
out his own destiny in friendly brotherhood. 

But behind even the great conflict between 



18 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

autocracy and democracy lay a yet deeper issue. 
In the last analysis the final question in human 
life is between a material and a spiritual inter- 
pretation of the universe, whether might makes 
right and the strong are to rule, or whether right 
makes might and the moral order is supreme. 
There is a material and a spiritual side of life. 
On this side is the brute struggle for life ; on that, 
the struggle for the life of others ; on the one hand, 
the fight for the survival of the fittest, and on 
the other, the fight to make men fit to survive. 
On the left hand is selfishness and on the right 
service ; on the one side are the red battlefields of 
the enemy, and on the other is a cross red in 
sacrifice of a life laid down in the serving and 
saving of men. There is a final issue in the world 
between passion and principle, between wrong 
and right, between darkness and light, between 
mammon and God, between self and Christ. 

This ultimate issue must be faced by individ- 
uals and by nations. It is the challenge which 
confronts men in this war.. Seventy years ago 
a crushed Europe faced the issue in the prophetic 
words of Mazzini, written in the hour of darkness 
and defeat: 

"Our victory is certain; I declare it with the 
profoundest conviction, here in exile, and pre- 
cisely when monarchical reaction appears most 
insolently secure. What matters the triumph of 
an hour? What matters it that by concentrating 
all your means of action, availing yourselves of 
every artifice, turning to your account those preju- 



AT THE FRONT 19 

dices and jealousies of race wliich yel for a while 
endure, and sjjreadinjj: dislniHt, egotism, and cor- 
ruption, you have rcj)ulscd our forces and restored 
the former onler of things? Can you restore men's 
faith in it, or think you can lonpj maintain it by 
brute force alone, now that all faith in it is 
extinct? Threatened and undermined on every 
side, can you hold all Euroxie forever in a stage 
of siege ?"^ 

Pasteur sees the same issue looming even in his 
day and states it in burning words at the close 
of his life: 

*'Two contrary laws seem to be wrestling with 
each other nowadays, the one a law of blood and 
of death, ever seeking new means of destruction 
and forcing nations to be constantly ready for 
the battletield ; the other a law of peace, work, 
and health, ever evolving new means of delivering 
man from the scourges which beset him. The 
first seeks violent conquests, the other the relief 
of humanity. The latter places one human life 
above any victory, while the former would sacri- 
fice hundreds and thousands of lives to the ambi- 
tion of one. Which of these two laws will ulti- 
mately prevail God only knows. We will have 
tried, by obeying the laws of humanity, to extend 
the frontiers of Life."^ 

Lincoln faced the same issue in the midst of 
the war weariness of our own great conflict with 
words which come back to the nation now with 
a prophetic call : 

"The world will little note, nor long remember 

1 Life and WritinKS of Maaxini, vol. v, pp. 269-271. 
'Life of Pasteur, p. 271. 



20 WITH OUE SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

what we say here, but it can never forget what 
they did here. It is for us the living, rather, 
to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which 
they who fought here have thus far so nobly ad- 
vanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated 
to the great task remaining before us — that from 
these honored dead we take increased devotion 
to that cause for which they gave the last full 
measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve 
that these dead shall not have died in vain — that 
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of 
freedom, and that government of the people, by 
the people, for the people shall not perish from 
the earth." 



WITH GENERAL TERSHING'S FORCE IN 
FRANCE 



CHAPTER II 

WITH GENERAL PERSHING'S FORCE IN 
FRANCE 

We are in the midst of an American army en- 
campment in a French village. For miles away 
over the rolling country the golden harvests of 
France are ripening in the sun, broken by patches 
of green field, forest, and stream. The reapers 
are gathering in the grain. Only old men, women, 
and children are left to do the work, for the sons 
of France are away at the battle front. The coun- 
trj'side is more beautiful than the finest parts 
of New York or Pennsylvania. In almost every 
valley sleeps a little French hamlet, with its red 
tiled roofs and its neat stone cottages, clustered 
about the village church tower. It is a picture of 
calm and i)eace and plenty under the summer sun. 
But the sound of distant guns on the neighboring 
drill grounds, a bugle call down the village 
street, the sight of the broad cowboy hats and the 
khaki uniforms of the American soldiers, arouse 
us to the realization of a world at war and the 
fact that our boys are here, fighting for the soil 
of France and the world's freedom. 

We are in a typical French farming village of 
a thousand people, and here a thousand American 
soldiers are quartered. A sergeant and a score 
23 



24 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

of men are in each shed or stable or barn loft. 
The Americans are stationed in a long string of 
villages down this railway line. Indeed it is 
hard to tell for the moment whether we are in 
France or in the States. Here are Uncle Sam's 
uniforms, brown army tents, and new wooden 
barracks. The roads are filled with American 
trucks, wagons, motors, and whizzing motor- 
cycles, American mules, ammunition wagons, 
machine guns, provisions, and supplies, and 
American sentinels down every street. 

These are the men of the First Division, scat- 
tered along behind the French lines, being drilled 
as rapidly as possible to take their place in the 
trenches for the relief of the hard-pressed French. 
The nucleus is made up of the men of the old 
army, who have seen service in Cuba, Porto Rico, 
the Philippines, Texas, or along the Mexican 
border. And with them are young boys of nine- 
teen, twenty, or twenty-one, with clear faces, 
fresh from their homes, chiefly from the Middle 
West — from Illinois to Texas. 

The first thing that strikes us as we look at 
these men is their superb kit and outfit. From 
the broad cowboy hat, the neat uniform close 
fitting at the waist, down to their American 
shoes; from the saddles, bits, and bridles to the 
nose bags of the horses; from the guns, motors, 
and trucks down to the last shoe lace, the equip- 
ment is incomparably the best and most expensive 
of all that we have seen at the front. The boys 



WITH PFJtSHING'8 FORCE 25 

themselves are live, clean, strong, and intelligent 
fellows, probably the best raw material of any 
of (ho fighting forces in Europe. The ofTicers tell 
us dial the American troops are natural marks- 
men and there are no better riflemen in the war 
zone. The frequoncy of the sharpshooters' medals, 
among both the olliccrs and the men, sliows that 
many of them already excel in musketry. 

The second impression that strikes us is the 
crudeness of the new men, and the lack of finish 
in their drill, as compared with the veteran troops 
of Britain and France. The progress they have 
made, however, in the past few weeks under their 
experienced American officers of the regular army 
has been truly remarkable. 

The next impression we receive is the enormous 
moral danger to which these men are exposed in 
this far-away foreign land. During the whole 
war it is tlie Overseas Forces, the men farthest 
from home influences, who have no hope of leave 
or furlough, who are far removed from all good 
women and the steadying intluence of their own 
reputations, that have fared the worst in the war. 
The Americans not only share this danger with 
the Colonials and other Overseas Forces, but they 
have an additional danger in their high pay. 
Here are enlisted men who tell us that they are 
paid from |35 to §5)0 a month, from the lowest 
private to the best paid sergeants. When you 
remember that the Russian private is allowed 
only one cent a day, that the Belgian soldier re- 



26 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

ceives only four cents a day, the French private 
five cents, the German six cents, and the English 
soldier twenty-five cents a day, most of which has 
to go for supplementary food to make up for the 
scantiness of the rations supplied, you realize 
what it means for the American soldier to be paid 
from one to three dollars a day, in addition to 
clothing, expenses, and the best rations of any 
army in Europe.^ 

Some of these men tell us that they have just 
received from two to three months' back pay in 
cash. Here they are with several hundred francs 
in their hands, buried in a French village, with 
absolutely no attraction or amusement save drink 
and immorality. In this little village the only 
prosperous trade in evidence is that in wines and 
liquors. The only large wholesale house is the 
center of the liquor trade and the only freight 
piled up on the platform of the station consists 
of wines and champagnes, pouring in to meet the 
demand of the American soldiers. There are a 
score of drinking places in this little hamlet. 
Our boys are unaccustomed to the simple and 
moderate drinking of the French peasants, and 
they are plunged into these estaminets with their 
pockets full of money. Others under the influence 
of drink have torn up the money or tossed it 
recklessly away. Prices have doubled and trebled 

'According to the War Bulletin of the National Geographic Society, 
issued in Washington in September 1917, a first dass American private 
drawing $36.60 a month receives more than a Russian colonel or a German 
or Austrian lieutenant. An American Ueutenant receives more than a 
British lieutenant colonel, a French colonel, or a Russian general. 



WITH PERSHING'S FORCE 27 

in the village in a few weeks, and the peasants 
have tome to the conclusion that every American 
soldier must be a millionaire; as the boys have 
sometimes told them that the pile of notes, which 
represents several months' pay, is the amount 
they receive every month. Compare this with the 
fl.80 a month, in addition to a small allowance 
for his family, which the French private gets, 
and you will readily see how this false impression 
is formed. 

Temptation and solicitation in Europe have 
been in almost exact proportion to the pay that 
the soldier receives. The harpies flock around 
the men who have the most money. As our Ameri- 
can boys are the best paid, and perhaps the most 
generous and open-hearted and reckless of all the 
troops, they have proved an easy mark in Paris 
and the port cities. As soon as they were paid 
sereral months' back salary, some of them took 
"French leave," went on a spree, and did not 
come back until they were penniless. The officers, 
fully alive to the danger, are now doing their 
utmost to cope with the situation; they are seek- 
ing to reduce the cash payments to the men and 
are endeavoring to persuade them to send more 
of their money home. Court martial and strict 
punishment have been imposed for drunkenness, 
in the effort to grapple with this evil. 

Will the friends of our American boys away in 
France try to realize just the situation that con- 
fronts them? Imagine a thousand healthy, happy, 



28 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

reckless, irrepressible American youths put down 
in a French village, without a single place of 
amusement but a drinking hall, and no social 
life save such as they can find with the French 
girls standing in the doorways and on the street 
corners. Think of all these men shut up, month 
after month, through the long winter, with noth- 
ing to do to occupy their evenings. Then you will 
begin to realize the seriousness of the situation 
which the Young Men's Christian Association is 
trying to meet. 

Here on the village green stands a big tent, 
with the sign "The American Y M C A," and the 
red triangle, which is already placed upon more 
than seven hundred British, French, and Ameri- 
can Association centers in France. Inside the 
tent, as the evening falls, scores of boys are sit- 
ting at the tables, writing their letters home on 
note paper provided for them. Here are men 
playing checkers, dominoes, and other games. 
Other groups are standing around the folding 
billiard tables. A hundred men have taken out 
books from the circulating library, while others 
are scanning the home papers and the latest news 
from the front. 

Our secretaries have been on the ground for a 
week, working daily from five o'clock in the morn- 
ing until midnight. They have unpacked their 
goods and are doing a driving trade over the 
counter, to the value of some |200 a day. In cer- 
tain cases goods are sold at a loss, as it is very 



WITH PERSHING'S FORCE 29 

hard iiulcod to pet supplies under i»reseiit war 
conditions. Tlu' steainei' "Kansan" was tor- 
pedoed, and sank \vi(li the whole first shipment 
of supplies and equipment for the YMCA huts 
in France. 

Outside a baseball game is exciting rivalry be- 
tween two companies; while near the door of the 
tent a ring is formed and tlie men are cheering 
pair after pair as they put on the boxing gloves 
and with good humor are learning to take some 
rather heavy slugging. Poor boys, they will have to 
stand much worse punishment than this before the 
winter is over. Just beside the present tent there 
is being rushed into position a big Y M C A hut 
which will accommodate temporarily a thousand 
men, before it is taken to pieces and shipped to 
some new center. The Association has ordered 
from Paris a number of permanent pine huts, 
GO by 120 feet, which will accommodate 2,000 
soldiers each, and keep them wami and well occu- 
pied during the long cold winter evenings tliat 
are to come. On the railway siding at the mo- 
ment are nine temporary huts, packed in sections 
for immediate construction, and a score of per- 
manent buildings have been ordered to be erected 
as fast as the locations for the camps are selected 
by the military authorities. Indeed, the aim is to 
have them on the ground and ready before the 
boys arrive and take the first plunge in the wrong 
direction. 

What is the life that our boys are living here 



30 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

at the front? Let us go through a day with the 
battalion quartered in this village. At five 
o'clock in the morning the first bugle sounds. 
The boys are quickly on their feet, dressing, wash- 
ing, getting ready for the day's drill. In half 
an hour they are tucking away a generous break- 
fast provided by Uncle Sam, of hot bacon, fried 
potatoes and coffee, good home made bread, and 
as much of it as a man can eat. They get meat 
twice a day, and we have found no soldiers in 
Europe who receive rations that compare with 
the food that our boys receive. 

By 6 : 40 a. m. the men have reached the drill 
ground on the open fields above the village and 
are ready to begin the eight or nine hours of hard 
work and exercise that is before them. Half of 
each day is spent with the French troops, learning 
more quickly with an object lesson before them, 
and the remaining half day is spent in training 
by themselves. The French squad goes through 
the drill or movement; then the American bat- 
talion, after watching them, is put through the 
same practice. They are trained in bayonet work 
and charges, in musketry and machine gun prac- 
tice, in the handling of grenades, and the throw- 
ing of bombs. There is evidence of speeding up 
and an apparent pressure to get them quickly 
into shape, in order to take their place in the 
trenches before the winter sets in. A few weeks 
at the front with the French troops will soon 
give them experience, and after a winter in the 



WITH PERSHING'S FOHCE 31 

treiu'hes, the nieii of these fii-st (livisioiis will 
doubtless form the nucleu.s for a large American 
army, and provide tlie drill masters quickly to 
train the men for the spring oU'ensive. 

On the day we were there, after a hard morn- 
ing's drill, the ("olcMiel assendded three battalions 
and put them through the first regimental forma- 
tion and the first regimental review since landing 
in France. The men of the First, Second, and 
Third battalions marched by, and one could 
quickly contrast the disciplined movements of the 
veterans or old soldiers with the crude drill of 
the new recruits, some of whom could not keep 
step or smoothly execute the movements. 

At the noon hour, after the men had taken their 
midday meal and had rested for a few minutes, 
the Colonel asked us if we would address the 
troops. Some two thousand men were niarchcil 
in close formation around the large military 
wagon on which we were to stand. The mules 
were unhitched ami the men seated themselves on 
the grass, while the band played several pieces. 
A great hunger of heart possesses any man with 
half a soul as he looks into the faces of these boys, 
beset by tierce temptations and facing a terrible 
viinter in the trenches. At the beginning we re- 
minded them of the words of Lord Kitchener to 
his troops before they left for France : "You are 
ordered abroad as a soldier. . . Kemember that 
the honor of the Army dep<Mids upon yonr individ- 
ual conduct. . . Your duty cannot be done unless 



32 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

your health is sound. So keep constantly on your 
guard against any excesses. In this new experi- 
ence you may find temptations both in wine and 
women. You must entirely resist both tempta- 
tions, . . treating all women with perfect cour- 
tesy."2 Kitchener's words furnish a text for the 
two-fold danger which confronts these men. Here 
for an unhurried hour, with the generous backing 
of the oflBcers, we plead with the men on military, 
medical, and moral grounds, for the sake of their 
own homes and families, for the sake of conscience 
and country, on the grounds of duty both to God 
and to man, to hold to the high ideals and the 
best traditions of the homeland. Here, with no 
church save the great dome of God's blue heaven 
above us, seated on the green grass, under the 
warm summer sun, we have the priceless privilege 
of trying to safeguard the life of these men in 
the grave danger of wartime. 

We were encouraged alike by the splendid sup- 
port of the officers and the warm-hearted and 
eager response of the men as they broke into 
prolonged applause. The General in command 
attended one meeting and pledged us his support 
for our whole program for the men. He had 
already cooperated with us most generously on 
the Canal Zone, in the Philippines, and in 
Mexico. Three colonels presided at three suc- 
cessive meetings, and gave the work their strong 
moral support. Three bands were furnished in 

2 See Appendix IV. 



WITH PEHSniNG'S FORCE 33 

two (lays. The official backing of \hv. aiillioritie.s 
placed the stamp of approval on the wliolc moral 
eflfort for the welfare of the men. In no otlicr 
army in lMiroi)e that we have .seen have the ofli- 
cers taken such a keen interest in tli<! liighest 
welfare of the troops, or offered such constant 
and cnicieut cooperation with every etfort to sur- 
round the men with the best moral influences. 

After the meeting, the regimental parade and 
the strenuous physical drill of the morning, the 
Colonel called for a short break, and the men 
gathered to learn some popular songs. Major 
Roosevelt assembled his battalion, and Archie 
Roosevelt enthusiastically led the men in singing 
Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Re- 
public" and the modern soldier songs of the war. 

After nine hours of hard drill, the men swung 
cheerfully down the hillside into the village 
street. Now they have lined up, and with raven- 
ous appetites are waiting for the evening meal. 
We are almost as hungry as they, and are glad 
to share the meal with them. Here on the table 
are huge piles of good home-made bread. It is 
almost the first white bread we have seen after 
months of brown war bread in England and 
France. Here are heaping plates of good pork 
and beans, tinned salmon, plenty of frie<l pota- 
toes, and pil)iiig hot coffee. This is followed by 
a delicious pudding, as good as the men would 
have had in their own homes. Well fed, well 
clothed, well equipped, sleeping under Uncle 



34 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

Sam's warm blankets, on comfortable "Gold 
Medal" cots, our boys are well cared for. 

In another village, at the close of the day, the 
Colonel commanding two battalions of the infan- 
try called the men together in the open square 
of the market place, and after a band concert 
invited us to address the troops on the moral 
issues of the war. The next day almost the same 
program was repeated, and at noon in an open 
field on a grassy hillside the Major of another 
battalion marched out his men for a similar lec- 
ture. Every commanding officer seemed eager to 
arrange for meetings, to summon the men, and 
to back up the messages given to them. Not only 
have General Pershing, General Sibert, and the 
Colonels commanding the various regiments, met 
us half way in every plan for the welfare of the 
troops; but they have taken the initiative in in- 
sisting that every provision should be made for 
the physical, mental, and moral occupation and 
safeguarding of the men. 

Probably more men are led astray in the war 
zone w'hen they go on leave than at any other 
time, in reaction from the deadly monotony of 
camp life, or the inferno of the trenches. London 
and Paris are the chief centers of danger. In 
London, just before sailing for the States, we 
visited the finely equipped American "Eagle" Hut 
in the Strand. It would be difficult to devise a 
more homelike or attractive place for soldiers. 
In addition to sleeping accommodations for sev- 



WITH IMOKSHING'S FOKCE 35 

eral huiulred iiieii, llie lounge and recreation 
rooms, the big fireplaces and comfortable chairs 
suggested the equipment of an up-to-date club, in 
marked contrast to the surroundings of a cheer- 
less soldiers' barracks. 

In Paris, in addition to the permanent head- 
quarters at 31 Avenue Montaigne, we are hoping 
to provide hotels and hostels and guides for super- 
vised parties to see the chief points of interest, 
and to plan such healthy occupation for the sol- 
diers that the evils of the city may be counter- 
acted. Better still we are planning resorts in the 
French Alps, where summer and winter sports, 
athletics, mountain climbing, and physical and 
mental recreation will obviate altogether the 
necessity of leave to Paris for many of the sol- 
diers of the United States and Canada. In the 
first resort we are arranging for special rates and 
moderate charges at the hotels and have the 
pledge of the civil authorities to keep the place 
wholesome and absolutely to prevent the incom- 
ing of camp followers. The Association is plan- 
ning to take over the best hotel, which can be 
made into an attractive social center for the 
entire camp. A score of American and as many 
Canadian ladies will help to provide social recrea- 
tion and amusement for the men, which will prove 
a greater attraction than the dangerous leave in 
Paris. 

A glance at one or two typical meetings held 
in various camps will show how we are trying to 



36 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

help our boys face the pressing problems of a 
soldier's life. 

We enter a large hut filled with a thousand 
soldiers. Here are many men who have been 
driven toward God and who are face to face with 
the great realities of life, death, and the future 
as never before in their lives, eager for any mes- 
sage which may help them. But here are several 
hundred others who have fallen victims to evil 
habits and who are determined you shall not force 
religion down their throats. How are we to cap- 
ture the attention of this mass of men and hold 
them? Will they bolt or stand fire? The time 
has come to begin the meeting and we plunge in. 
"Come on, boys, let's have a sing-song; gather 
round the piano and let's sing some of the old 
camp songs." Out come the little camp song 
books, and we start in on a few favorite choruses. 
A dozen voices call for "John Brown's Body," 
"Tennessee," "Kentucky Home," "A Long, Long 
Trail," etc. Soon we have several hundred men 
seated around the piano and the chorus gathers 
in volume. Now we call for local talent. A boy 
with blue eyes and a clear tenor voice sings of 
home. A red-headed humorist climbs on the 
table; and at his impersonations, his acting, and 
comic songs, the crowd shouts with glee. 

Our heart sinks within us as we look over this 
sea of faces and wonder how we are going to hold 
this crowd that this man seems to have in the 
hollow of his hand. Somehow these men must 



WITH PERSHING'S FORCE 37 

be gripped and held to the last. "Boys, what was 
the greatest battle of the war?" we ask. "Was 
it the brave stand of little Belgium at Liege? 
Was it the splendid retreat of the little British 
army from Mons? Was it the battle of the Marne, 
when the French and British struck their first 
offensive blow? Was it the great stand at Ypres, 
or the defense of Verdun, or the drive on the 
Somnie? What is your hardest battle? Is it not 
within, in the fight with passion? Now is the 
time to challenge every sin that weakens a man 
or the nation. How about drink? Is it a friend 
or foe? How about gambling? How about im- 
purity?" Here we mass our guns on the greatest 
danger of the war. In five minutes the room is 
quiet, in ten minutes we have the ear of every 
man in the hut, the last man has stopped talking, 
and now the battle is on. They are grip])ed on 
the moral question ; how can we get them to the 
religious issue? These men have the root of 
religion in their souls, but they do not know it. 
They believe in strength, in purity, in generosity. 
We show that they are often falling before temp- 
tation, but the very things that they most admire 
are all found in their fulness in Jesus Christ. 

Now we make use of a simple illustration. We 
hold up a gold coin hidden in our hand and offer 
it as a gift. "Who will take me at my word and 
ask for this gift?" At last a man rises in the 
back of the hall, there is a little scene, and then 
a burst of applause as he receives it and goes to 



38 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

his seat. "Now why didn't you come? Some of 
you didn't believe me, some were ashamed to come 
up before everybody and ask for it, some were 
just waiting; and so all lost your chance. Once 
again I ofifer a gift. Here is something more valu- 
able than all the gold on earth — heaven to be 
had for the asking ; the free gift of God is eternal 
life. Why don't you come? For the same three 
reasons. Some of you don't believe, some are 
afraid to show their colors, some are just waiting. 
You will soon start for the front to take your 
place in the trenches. Are you ready for life or 
death? What will you do with Jesus Christ?" 

We have had them forty minutes now and many 
a man is listening as for his life. We hold up 
the pledge card of the war roll. "How many of 
you are willing to take your stand against drink, 
gambling, and impurity, to break away from sin, 
and to sign the war roll, which says: 'I pledge 
my allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ as my 
Saviour and King, by God's help to fight His 
battles and bring victory to His Kingdom' ? Who 
will take his stand for Christ and sign tonight?" 
Here and there all over the house men begin to 
rise. A hundred come forward to get cards and 
sign them. Then every head is bowed and in the 
stillness we pray for these boys; for they are 
mere lads, with ruddy cheeks, fresh from the 
farm or the city. 

Now the meeting breaks up and we move down 
into the crowd. Men come up and ask for private 



WITH PERSHING'S FORCE 30 

talks, some to confess their sins and others to 
re(jm'sf prayer. Here is a boy who is frien<lle8s 
and lionieless and in need; the next man has just 
lost his wife, his Iiome, and his money, but here 
in the war he has been driven to prayer and has 
found God. He has lost everything, but he tells 
us with a brave smile that he has gained all, and 
now wishes to prepare for the ministry to i)reach 
the Gospel. Next is a young atheist, an illegiti- 
mate child, a circus actor, who has now found 
God and wants to know how to relate his life 
to Christ. The next man is a jockey, who in the 
midst of his sins enlisted in order that he might 
die for others and try to atone for his past life. 

Later, we were holding evangelistic meetings 
among the boys of another regiment. One Sun- 
day evening we were in a big hut where the meet- 
ing was about to begin. Many of the men were 
writing to the old folks at home. Captain "Peg" 
of Canada, who was with us to lead the singing, 
stepped on the platform and announced a hymn. 
Immetliately several hundred men flocked to the 
seats and began singing the Christian hymns they 
knew at home. Eyes lit up and faces were aglow 
as they sang "Nearer, My God, to Thee," "Lead, 
Kindly Light," and "Fight the Good Fight." 
Gradually the numbers increased until a thou- 
sand men were singing. Then we began the ad- 
dress. Here were open-hearted boys some of whom 
had gone down before the temptations of the port 
cities and who now have to face the dangers of 



40 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

a camp in France. We began on moral themes. 
Within half an hour it seemed as if the better 
nature of every man was with us. The Chris- 
tian ideals of home, of the Church, and of their 
own best selves surged up again, until we had 
seated and standing nearly twelve hundred men, 
many of whom were ready to make the fight for 
purity with the help of Jesus Christ. One can 
never forget that closing hymn as the men rose 
to sing "God Be With You Till We Meet Again." 
We saw tear-stained faces before us as nearly the 
whole company joined in the song "Tell Mother 
I'll Be There." 

Here was one poor fellow who felt he could not 
sign the decision card. He sent up this little 
note: "I am the worst man in the tent — a man 
who robbed his old father of his life's savings. 
How can I hope to be any good again without 
any prospect of ever being able to repay this 
money?" But before he left he had accepted 
God's forgiveness, and the dawn of a new eternity 
breaks upon his happy face. There was another 
man, the worst character in the regiment. Finally, 
touched by the secretary's kindness, he had read 
his little pocket Testament in prison, had yielded 
his life to Christ, and was now witnessing among 
the soldiers in the camp. Another, broken down, 
came up to say he had wronged a girl at home, 
and to ask if there was any hope for him. The 

last man. Bob A , serving at present with a 

British regiment, tells us he was a Christian in 



WITH TERSHING'S FORCE 41 

Cleveland, Ohio, before tlic war. He lay all last 
iilpht <lruiik in Iho fields, l»u(, convictcMl of his 
in'ollijjalc life, he ropeiited and turned back aj^ain 
lo (}()d. There was another boy who stopped to 
tell us that ever since a previous nieotiiif? he had 
knelt in prayer every night before all the men. 

At the close of the meeting another man stepped 
up and handed in a letter, saying: "Thank you 
for that message tonight, sir, I will be true to 
the little girl I left at home. Here is a letter I 
had just written to a bad woman. God helping 
me I will not go. I have signed the War Roll 
tonight and I am going to be true to it." Hun- 
dreds of men filed past and shook hands in grati- 
tude. 

We were facing an average of some five hundred 
men everj' night in the week and a thousand or 
more on Sunday. One humble private who had 
been a pilot out at sea, handed us a poem which 
he had just written, the last lines of which are 
typical of the verses many of the men are writing 
these days : 

"And if I fall, Lord, take an erring mortal 

Into those realms of peace and joy above; 
And, by-aud-by, at Thy fair mansion's portal, 
Let me find there the little girl I love." 

In all our meetings our aim has been to enable 
men to find themselves by coming into a personal 
and vital relation with God as Father, through 
Jesus Christ. Our purpose is to evangelize, but 



42 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

not to proselytize. We aim to make each man 
more loyal to his own church. During the three 
years of the war, we have never known of a man 
changing his church or being asked to do so. Our 
aim is not to change any man's ecclesiastical posi- 
tion, but to make him a truer and stronger man 
in the church where he is. The great outstand- 
ing issue in war time is not between creed and 
creed, between sect and sect, but between God 
and mammon, between right and wrong, purity 
and impurity. We have no contention concern- 
ing the questions that divide us; we are fighting 
for the great fundamentals upon which we are 
all united, for God and moral manhood. 



A DAY IN THE "BULL RING" 



CHAPTER III 
A DAY IN THE ''BULL RING" 

Just before going into the trenches the British, 
French, and American troops take a final course 
for a few weeks in a training school, where the 
expert drill masters put them through a rigorous 
discipline, and the finishing touches are given 
to each regiment. At the moment of writing our 
American boys are going through such a course, 
"somewhere in France." The men commonly call 
this training school, or specially prepared final 
drill ground, the ''Bull Eing." It is a thrilling 
spectacle to see many thousands of men across 
a vast plain going through the various maneuvers 
of actual warfare as it is practiced today at the 
front. Perhaps a brief description of such a drill 
ground may be of interest to those who are fol- 
lowing the fortunes of our soldiers. 

At six the bugle sounds and the whole camp 
is astir. Outside there is the clatter of feet as 
the men fall in after a hasty breakfast. The 
shrapnel-proof steel helmets are donned, the 
heavy seventy-pound kits and rifles are swung to 
the broad backs, the band strikes up 'Tack Up 
Your Troubles," and our battalion is on the 
march for the "Bull King.'' 
46 



46 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

First comes the ceremonial parade. A whole 
brigade swings into line and must prove that it 
can move as one man, as a perfect machine, with- 
out flaw or friction. One master mind directs 
every motion, and at the word of command thou- 
sands of feet are moving in exact time, wheeling, 
marching, maneuvering with a precision that 
proves the long months of patient practice. This 
finish of discipline and perfection of unity have 
their part to play in the winning of the battle 
raging at this moment up the line. 

Next the men must pass through the deadly 
gas chambers, to be ready to meet the attack of 
the enemy fully prepared. More fatal than the 
prussic acid which the Prussian has occasionally 
employed, is the deadly mixture of chlorine and 
phosgene, which has been most commonly used. 
In a gentle favoring wind it is put over invisible 
in the darkness, and if it catches the foe unpre- 
pared, can kill from ten to fifteen miles behind 
the lines. The mixture is squirted as a liquid 
from metal generators. It quickly forms a dense 
greenish yellow cloud of poison vapor, which 
floats away in the darkness. Its success must 
depend on the element of surprise, taking the 
enemy unprepared and choking him, awake or 
asleep, in the first few moments before the horns, 
gongs, and whistles send the alarm for miles be- 
hind the trenches. 

Recently a new so-called "mustard gas" has 
been used by the enemy with deadly effect, owing 



A DAY IN THE "BULL RING" 47 

to the fact that it is both invisible and odorless. 
It is sent over in exploding shells, and sinks in 
a heavy invisible vapor abont the sleeping men, 
creeping into their dugonts and trenches or en- 
veloping them around the guns or in the shell 
holes. The etTects do not manifest themselves 
for several honrs. With stinging pain the man's 
eyes begin to close, and for a time he may go 
almost blind. He is then taken violently sick. 
The snrface of the lungs and the entire body, 
especially where it is moist with perspiration, is 
burned. The skin may blister and come otf. Many 
cases have proved fatal and many more sutler 
cruelly for weeks in hospital. With the men 
we attended a lecture on the nature of the vari- 
ous gases used by the enemy and the proper 
methods of meeting them. The lecture through- 
out was unconsciously couched almost in theo- 
logical language. The instructor first disposed 
of what he called superstitious "heresies" con- 
cerning the gas, in order to prevent the men from 
having ])anic and "getting the wind u])." There 
is a foolish rumor which says, "One breath and 
you are ruptured for life, or you fall dead the 
next morning," etc., etc., but he warns the men 
of its deadly nature and tells them they are to 
be .saved from its fatal effects by knowing the 
truth. 

The instructor explains that if they take four 
deep breaths it will prove fatal: "One breath and 
you catch the tirst spasm, two and you are mad, 



48 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

three and you are unconscious, four and you are 
dead. If you keep your presence of mind and 
hold your breath you will have six seconds to 
get on your gas helmet or respirator," The at- 
tack, remember, is a surprise in the dark; brain- 
splitting gas shells are dropping on all sides, and 
it is hard to keep cool and hold one's breath in 
the moment of sudden surprise and panic. We 
are told that there are fifteen mistakes which are 
easily possible in getting on this complicated 
helmet, or if there is one big blunder in the sud- 
den surprise the man is done for. 

Before going through the death chamber, hel- 
mets are inspected, to see that they are sound and 
unpunctured, and the men are drilled in the open 
to practice putting them on quickly. Suddenly 
the warning whistle of an imaginary gas attack 
sounds. One backward fling of the head and the 
steel helmet falls off, for there is no time to lift 
it off. A dive into the bag carried on the chest 
and the respirator is grasped and with one skilful 
swoop it is drawn over the face. Your nose is 
pinched shut by a clamp, your teeth grip the 
rubber mouthpiece, and, like a diver, you must 
now get your one safe stream of pure air through 
the respirator. You draw in the air from a tube 
which rises from a tin of chemical on your chest. 
Then you can breathe in the dense, deadly, green- 
ish chlorine vapor, for as it passes through the 
respirator filled with chemicals, it is absorbed, 
neutralized, oxidized, and purified into a stream 



A DAY IN THE ''BULL RING" 49 

of pure air. All about you may be choking fumes 
of death which would kill you in four seconds, 
yet you will be comijletely iniimiiie, breathing a 
purified atmosphere. 

The soldiers are now marched up to this cham- 
ber of horrors to walk through the poison gas. 
Many have "the wind up" (i. e., they are afraid 
inside, but are ashamed to show it). Reliance 
on the guide, the expert who has been through 
it all, and the sense of companionship, the 
stronger ones unconsciously strengthening the 
weak, have a steadying effect upon all the men. 
The soldiers have had four hours' drill to prepare 
them, but the "padre" and I, who are now per- 
mitted to go through, have had but four minutes. 
1 am trying to remember a number of things all 
at once. Above all I must keep cool and assure 
myself that there is no danger if only I trust and 
obey what the expert has said. I Hing on the 
helmet and we start into the death chamber, but 
suddenly a string is loo.se — will the respirator 
work? There seems to be something the matter 
with my nosepiece which should be clamped shut. 
1 would like to ask the instructor just one ques- 
tion to make sure, but I can no more talk than 
a diver beneath the sea. It is too late, we are 
moving, I can only hope and trust the helmet 
will hold. We have left the sunlight and are in 
a long dark covered chamber, like a trench, grop- 
ing forward, and looking at a distant point of 
light through the dim goggles. We are alone in 



50 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

these deadly fumes, the instructor is not here, 
there is a tense silence, and all about us is the 
poison of death. Oh, what was that fourth point 
that I was to remember? Why has the guide 
turned back? I thought we were to go out at 
the further end, where last week the poor fellow 
fell who lifted his helmet a moment too soon after 
he got out and caught one whiff which sent him 
to the hospital, but instead we seem to be turning 
around and going back. But there is no time 
for explanations or questions now; we just plod 
on through the darkness and soon we are out in 
the sunlight again — safe ! — in God's pure air. Oh, 
why did man ever want to pollute it and poison 
his brother with these deadly fumes of hell ! 

As a special favor, the instructor allows us, 
without a mask, to take one swift look into the 
fumes as we hold our breath. That yellow green 
chlorine will corrode the lungs and fill them with 
pus and blood. The phosgene is much more 
deadly and will strike the man down with sudden 
failure of the heart. 

We were also sent through a chamber of the 
invisible "tear gas," without a mask. The object 
of this is to take away the fear of the gas from 
the men. This particular gas has no effect upon 
the lungs, but sends a stinging pain through the 
eyes, so that one weeps blindly for some minutes 
and could not possibly see to shoot or to defend 
himself. 

We are now ready to return to another lecture 



A DAY IN THE "BULL RING" 51 

with more understanding. No wonder these tired 
boys under the heavy, hot steel helmets, which 
absorb the heat of the scorching sun, are listening 
with all their ears, yet one or two fall asleep fur 
very weariness and may again be caught na])ping 
by the enemy's poison gas up the line. The in- 
structor is in dead earnest, for the life of every 
man during the coming conflict may depend upon 
his message. His words are still in my ears, 
for they were strangely like a sermon : 

"Men, I am going to tell you the truth about 
this deadly gas and you must believe it, for your 
life will depend upon it. It can kill and no doubt 
about it. But for every poison of the enemy 
there's an antidote and we have found it. Your 
helmet is perfect and you simply must believe in 
it, you must trust to it. We have made full pro- 
vision for your safety. If you go under it will 
be your own fault from one of four causes — un- 
belief, disobedience, carelessness, or fear. If you 
carelessly go without your helmet it means death. 
During an attack, after putting on the respirator, 
just stand and wait. There is nothing you can 
do for yourself except to keep your helmet on. 
Your skill, your strength are nothing. Now if 
you are caught in an attack unawares remember 
if you're still alive at all, there's hope. Don't 
lose courage. If your confidence goes, you lose 
ninety per cent of your defense, for the sole hope 
of the enemy in gas is surprise and panic. If you 
are gassed, don't move. Keep still, keep warm, 



52 WITH OUR SOLDIEES IN FEANCE 

don't worry, and wait. To move or try to save 
yourself will be fatal. 

"The enemy will put over three or four waves 
with a break between. The gas may come for 
some hours. To remove your helmet before the 
attack is over will be fatal. Within a quarter 
of an hour after the gas has ceased, the charge 
of the enemy will come and you must never let 
him get past your barbed wired entanglements. 
After exposure to gas, all food, water, and wells 
are poisonous. The heavy gas must be expelled 
from the trenches by fans before the charge 
comes. Only remember, you must believe what 
I say, keep your helmet on in time of danger and 
you are perfectly safe." 

There is a vast difference between the warning 
and the preparatory exposure to the gas by your 
guide and the deadly surprise of the enemy. The 
former is a trial to prepare you, the latter is an 
effort to destroy you. The whole experience was 
so obviously parallel to the deadly moral dangers 
which surround the soldier in war time that it 
needs no comment. The one and only safety in 
the time of temptation is to put on the whole 
armor of God, especially the "helmet of salva- 
tion," then to trust and obey and stand fast. 

The writer has just come from a ward in the 
hospital filled with patients suffering from the 
new gas which the enemy has lately put over. It 
is, as we have said, invisible and odorless, so 
the men receive no warning, and consequently do 



A DAY IN THE "BULL RING" 53 

not put on their masks. They do not know that 
they are l)eiM<^ <j;ass(Ml until hours afterwards, 
w^hen they tind tliey are burned from head to foot. 
Here are twenty men lying in this tent, sutferiug 
from this new torture. This first boy, with a 
wan smile that goes right to your heart, can only 
whisper from his bumt-out lungs and cannot tell 
us Ijis story. The next man was taken witli vomit- 
ing live hours after the gas shells exploded. Seven 
of his fourteen companions sleeping in the dugout 
were killed outright, the others were gassed. He 
does not know where they are. He lay uncon- 
scious for several days, and now his eyes and skin 
are burned as though he had i)assed through a 
fire. The next boy is badly burned in his eyes 
and chest. Half the men of his battery were killed 
by gas while asleep at night. On the next cot is 
a boy who has been sutl'ering for seventeen days; 
the burns on his body have been improving, his 
lungs also are better, but he is still blind and 
fears he may lose his sight. He asks me to write 
a letter for him to his mother. "Only," he says, 
"don't tell her about my eyes." Together we make 
up a cheerful letter, and the boy rests back on 
his cot to pray for his returning eyesight. The 
next two beds are empty. Both the men <lied in 
the night, falling an easy prey to pneumonia in 
their weakened condition. The next boy is from 
the infantry. Out of his squad nine were killed 
by the explosion of the shell, eight wounded, and 
the rest badly burned. The neck, chest, arms, and 



54 WITH OUR SOLDIEES IN FRANCE 

legs of this boy are burned and blistered. The 
deadly gas fumes have burned right through his 
clothing. 

Such is the effect of this new and latest 
triumph of modern science, which will shatter the 
hopes and happiness of thousands of homes. 

After passing through the gas chambers, we 
visited the bombing section of the training school. 
Here each man has to throw one or more live 
bombs and receive his final coaching. The bomb 
is about the size of a lemon, and is made to break 
into small fragments. It contains enough of the 
high explosive to kill a whole group of men. The 
boy advances and grasps the bomb ; he draws out 
the pin and holds down the lever. Once this 
is released, it explodes in just five seconds. 
The man heaves his bomb over a parapet at a 
dummy dressed in German uniform. The whistle 
blows and we all duck. There is a terrific explo- 
sion like a small cannon and you hear the pieces 
whizzing through the air. Every man is holding 
in his hand and wielding a terrible power. 
Wrongly used, it is death to himseK and his com- 
rades. The other day a boy's hand was moist 
with perspiration and the bomb slipped, killing 
the group. Another prematurely exploded as it 
was being thrown, carrying away the man's own 
hand and killing the instructor. So it is a dan- 
gerous business. During the morning there were 
only four "duds," or bombs that would not go off. 

After the bombing section, we pass with the 



A DAY IN TBE ''BILL RING" 55 

men to the trenches. Bayonets are drawn .iiul 
rifles loaded. After firing several rounds, comes 
the connnaiul, "Advance." At a bound they are 
"over the top" and olF, heads down; they run 
very .slowly and keep together. A breathless man 
who outruns his comrades is useless ajul is soon 
killed by the enemy. The drill sergeant shouts 
to the men "Keep together, keep together, men, 
one man can't take a trench," and my friend the 
"padre" notes his words to tell to his congrega- 
tion when he goes home, where the minister can't 
do all the work. When they are near the enemy's 
trench, the tinal word ^'Charge" is shouted, the 
whole line leaps forward with a wild yell, and 
the bayonets are driven into the stufifed sacks 
which are suspended as dummies to serve in the 
place of men. 

For miles across the great plain the "Bull 
Ring" is alive with men. Here in one section 
they are doing physical drill and learning to go 
over all kinds of obstacles — trenches, fences, 
barbed wire, shell holes, and ditches. There they 
are practicing musketry and advancing under 
cover. In one place the artiller\' is in full swing, 
and in another you hear the sputter of the ma- 
chine guns. In one section they are taught to 
dig trenches and in another to take them. 

Before a great advance where a system of 
trenches is to be taken, a "rehearsal'' often takes 
place. From a height of thousands of feet above 
the lines the aircraft with powerful telescopic 



56 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

cameras photograph every foot of the battlefield 
covered by the enemy's lines. These photographs 
are developed and studied and diagrams drawn 
from them of the enemy's system of trenches. 
These diagrams are reproduced far behind the 
front in elaborately prepared earthwork and 
trenches which are an exact replica of the enemy's 
lines. The divisions which are to take part in 
the attack are sent back to rehearse their exact 
duties at just the point corresponding to that 
which they will have to take. Each officer knows 
every nook and crevice, each bay and angle of 
the trenches he will have to capture. When all 
is ready the men are placed in their exact posi- 
tions and they execute in reality what they have 
rehearsed in theory behind the lines. The lesson 
of preparedness and organization is studied and 
mastered with infinite care. 



WITH THE BRITISH ARMY 



CHAPTER IV 
WITH THE BRITISH AKMY 



In sheltered America we cannot realize what 
war means, but when we entered the warring 
countries of Europe, in an instant we were in a 
diflFerent atmosphere. We landed in England 
upon a darkened coast, we entered a darkened 
train, where every blind was drawn lest it fur- 
nish a guide to London for invading Zeppelins or 
aeroplanes. We passed through gloomy towns 
and villages, where not a single light was show- 
ing from a window, where every street lamp and 
railway station was darkened or hidden. Auto- 
mobiles with a dim spark of light groped through 
the black streets of the metropolis. 

In London we saw a great Zeppelin brought 
down in flames. It was a sight never to be for- 
gotten. At half-past two in the morning we 
were awakened by the roar of the anti-aircraft 
guns in and around the city. After traveling all 
night from Germany, one Zeppelin had arrived 
over London and a whole fleet of them was scat- 
tered over the coasts and counties of England. 

We sprang to the window and found the sky 
swept by a score of seanhliglits with their great 
shafts of piercing light, shooting from the dark 
59 



60 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

depths of the city high into the sky, where they all 
converged on a single bright object that hung 
nine thousand feet above us. Long, and shining 
like silver with its flashing aluminum, the Zep- 
pelin seemed held as if blinded by the fierce light. 
Bombs were dropping from it and explosions fol- 
lowed in rapid succession in the city beneath. 

It was a battle to the death, high in the air 
with all London looking on. The guns were in 
full play and the shell and shrapnel were burst- 
ing all about the Zeppelin. Sometimes you could 
trace the whole trajectory of a projectile, as a 
spark of light swept through the sky toward the 
Zeppelin and" then burst to the right or left, above 
or below it. Most of the shots seemed to go wide 
of the mark. More than a score of aeroplanes 
had been sent up to attack it, with one plane to 
guide the rest and signal to the guns below by 
wireless or lights. The battle finally developed 
into a duel to the death between the machine guns 
of the Zeppelin and Lieutenant Robinson of the 
Flying Corps, who was up for two hours in his 
aeroplane after the enemy — one man fighting for 
a city of five millions. He attacked from below 
and bombs were thrown at his plane; then he 
attacked from the side as he circled about the 
monster, but he was driven off by their machine 
guns. At last, mounting high in the sky, he at- 
tacked from above. The guide-plane flashed down 
the signal for the guns to cease firing and give 
him a chance. 



WITH THE BRITISH ARMY 01 

For a few inoments all was silent; the battle 
seemed to be over. The great airsliip, wliicli lind 
swung sharply to the left, was triumphantly lenv- 
ing for home. Then it was that Robinson dropped 
his ineendiary bomb. Suddenly there was an 
explosion. A flame of burning gas leaped into 
the sky. London was lit up for ten miles round- 
about. Our r(M)m was instantly as bright as 
though a searchlight had flashed into the window. 
Far above us was the Zeppelin in flames. Now 
it began to sink — first it was in a blaze of white 
light, then its cmtline turned to a dull red, finally 
it crumpled to a glowing cinder, sank from sight, 
and fell crashing to the earth. Then all was 
dark again. Death had fallen suddenly upon the 
men in the Zeppelin and upon some in the sleep- 
ing city below. 

As we drove through London we passed the 
draper's shop, near St. Paul's Cathedral, where 
George Williams and a group of twelve young 
men met in a little upper room on June 6, 
1844, to organize the first Young Men's Chris- 
tian Association. A dozen young men with 
little wealth, influence, or education might 
not seem a very formidable force, but twelve men 
have upset the world and changed the course of 
history before now. They had only thirteen shill- 
ings, or 13.25, in the treasury, and were too poor 
even to print and send out a circular announcing 
their little organization. But George Williams 
brought his fist down on the table, with the con- 



62 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

fident words, "If this movement is of God, the 
money will come." 

It has come. The twelve men have been mul- 
tiplied now to a million and a half, scattered in 
forty lands. Girded with new strength and with, 
the dauntless optimism of youth, the movement 
has risen up to minister not only to the millions 
of British and American soldiers and munition 
workers, but also to the men in the camps, hos- 
pitals, or prisons in most of the nations now at 
war. The thirteen shillings have been multiplied 
until now the permanent Y M A buildings are 
worth over a hundred million dollars. An average 
of two new huts or centers have been erected 
and opened by the British or American Associa- 
tions every day since war was declared; while 
two permanent buildings in brick or stone rise 
each week in some part of the world. 

Wars are the birth-pangs of new eras. A 
new day dawned for the Young Men's Chris- 
tian Association with the present war. At 
midnight on August 4, 1914, the British As- 
sociation as it had been for seventy years was 
buried and forgotten, and a new movement arose 
on the ruins of the old. Ninety per cent of its 
former workers left to join the colors, but a new 
army of over thirty thousand men and women 
was mustered and trained within its huts for the 
service of the British soldiers. The Y M C A had 
suddenly to "think imperially," and to minister 
to a world at war. 



WITH THI'] BRITISH ARMY G.>. 

Seventy years ago George Williams was lln' 
man of the hour, but a leader of the British war 
work of the Y M C A was found in the present 
crisis in the jierson of Mr. A. K. Yapj), General 
Secretary of the National ('ouncil of Great 
Britain, who has recently been knighted by virtue 
of his distinguished service for the nation. He 
had si)eut Sunday, August second, in deep search- 
ing of heart and had caught a vision of what the 
war would mean, and the opi)ortnnity that would 
be presented to an organization that was inter- 
denominational, international, readily mobile, 
and adaptable enough instantly to meet a great 
national crisis. 

Within a fortnight the British army and the 
whole British navy were mobilized for war. Dur- 
ing that time the Y M C A was represented in four- 
fifths of the camps of the territorial forces and 
250 centers were opened. In six months 500 cen- 
ters were occupied ; at the end of the fii'st year 
there were 1,000, and after two years of the war 
1,500 such centers were in full swing. The area 
of operations includes the British Isles, Egypt, 
the Dardanelles, Malta, the Mediterranean ports, 
India, Me.^^opotamia, East and South Africa, 
Canada, Australia, and out to the last limits of 
Britain's far Hung battle line. 

The Y M (' A has a strong homing instinct, aim- 
ing to provide "a home away from home." In the 
dugouts behin«l the ti-enches, in the de.serts of 
lOgypt, or in the jungles of Africa, it has been 



64 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

forced to make a home in every kind of shelter. 
It was significant that its first three successive 
dwelling places seventy years ago were a little 
bedroom, a coffee house, and a room in a tavern. 
During the present war, one may see Associations 
in actual operation along the fighting line in 
France, in a cowshed, a pigsty, a stable, a hop- 
house, dugouts under the earth; in battered and 
ruined buildings in Flanders; in tents in the 
Sahara and on the ancient Peninsula of Mt. Sinai ; 
at the bases of the big battle fleets; in the rest 
houses of the flying corps ; on the Bourse in Cairo ; 
in hotels taken over in Switzerland and France, 
and in the great Crystal Palace of London. In 
four centers it has used and transformed a 
brewery, a saloon, a theater, and a museum. Its 
dwellings stretch away from the tents of "Caesar's 
Camp," where the Roman Julius landed in 55 
B. C, on the southern shores of Britain, to the 
far north, in the new naval institute at Inver- 
gordon, erected for the sailors of the Grand Fleet 
at a cost of more than |20,000. They range from 
the battered dugouts at the front in France to the 
Shakespeare hut in London, costing more than 
$30,000. They stretch from the rest huts of the 
great metropolis, with sleeping and feeding ac- 
commodations for some ten thousand men a day 
during the dangerous period of leave in London, 
away to the hut in "Plug Street" Woods, recently 
blown to atoms by a shell, where the secretary 
escaped by a few seconds and returned to find 



WITH THK BKITISFT ATtMY (;."» 

literally nothing left save the rims ol' his spec- 
tacles and two coins melted and fused together by 
the terrific heat of the exj>losion. Several of the 
secretaries and workers have been killed by shell 
fire, or in transit by torpedoes from submarines, 
while other Association men have received the 
Victoria Cross for heroism in action. 

Let us visit a typical hut to grasp the signifi- 
cance of its work, in order that we may realize 
what is going on in the fifteen hundred similar 
centers. We are on the great Salisbury Plain, in 
the midst of thirty miles square of weltering mud 
during the long winter months. To realize what 
a hut means to the men in such a place, we must 
understaiul the unnatural situation created by the 
conditions of war. Ilere are multitudes of men 
far from home, shut out from the society of all 
good women, taken away from their church and 
its surroundings, weary and wet with marching 
and drilling, often lonely and dejected, in an 
atmosphere of profanity and obscenity in the 
cheerless barrack rooms, and tempted by the ani- 
mal passions which are always loosed in war- 
time. The men need all the help we can give 
them now, and need it desperately. 

Now can you measure just what a big warm 
hut means to these men as a home, far away from 
home? The red triangle at the entrance gleams 
across the whole camp and stands for the three 
things the soldier most needs. 

It stands, in the first place, as a pledge for 



66 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

supplying the physical need of these hungry, 
lonely, and fiercely tempted men. A dry shelter, 
a warm fire, a cheerfully lighted room, the bursts 
of song, and the hum of conversation make the 
men forget the wind and rain and mud outside. 
Supper and a hot cup of coffee satisfy their 
hunger. On the notice-board is the announcement 
of the outdoor sports, football tournaments, and 
the games, where the thirty thousand men of the 
division will compete in open contest on the com- 
ing Saturday, under the direction of the Y M C A. 
Whatever the soldier needs for his physical life, 
whether it is to eat or to sleep, a bed in London, 
a cool drink in the thirsty desert, or hot coffee 
in the trenches, it is furnished for him by the 
Association. 

The hut also provides for the soldier's intel- 
lectual and social needs. The piano and the 
phonograph, the billiard tables, draughts and 
chess boards, tables for games, library, and read- 
ing room keep him busy ; and the concerts, stimu- 
lating lectures, moving pictures, educational 
classes, and debating societies provide him with 
recreational and mental employment. 

The far deejjer moral and spiritual needs of the 
soldier are also met. As the evening draws to 
a close, one sees the secretary in his military uni- 
form stand up on the table ; hats are off and heads 
are bowed at the call for evening prayers, which 
are held here every night. On Sunday the parade 
services of the different denominations take place 



WITH THE BRITISH AKMY 07 

in turn in (he Association lint. Weekly volun- 
tary religious meetings are also held. At one 
end of the building is the ''quiet room," where 
grouj>s of (Mu'istian soldiers can meet for Bible 
das.ses or for prayer. At regular intervals evan- 
gelistic meetings are held. On our last night at 
this hut, on a Sunday evening, twelve hundred 
men gathered to listen to the Christian mes- 
sage. 

Of the three bars of the triangle, it is this which 
stands at the top, which unites the other two and 
which is the dominating factor of the whole. And 
yet nowhere is religion forced down the throats 
of the men. Kather it is the aim to make it the 
unconscious atmosphere of the whole hut. It is 
a striking fact, to which every soldier will testify, 
that while the language of the barrack room and 
beer canteen is often reeking with the profane and 
the obscene, the whole tone of the Association 
hut is entirely different. As one soldier says: 
"You don't realize the enormous ditfereuce of 
atmosjthere between this and any other place 
where .'<oldiers congregate. A man simply does 
not talk bad language and tilth here; he learns 
to control him.self." Thus the threefold work of 
the Association stands for the whole man and for 
the whole manhood of the nation. 

In many ways the YMCA hut seeks to meet 
the soldier's every need. 

1. It is his club, where he meets his comrades 
and in the freedom and friendship of the place 



68 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

forgets the irksome drill, the endless restraints, 
and the stern discipline of military life. 

2. As we have already seen, it is his home, the 
place where he writes his letters and keeps in 
touch with his family and distant friends. Nearly 
twenty million pieces of stationery are sent out 
free for the soldiers each month from the London 
central office, and the sign of the red triangle 
on the letter head brings weekly joy and cheer 
to the broken circle in the distant home. It is 
here that the lad is helped to "keep the home fires 
burning" in his heart and to hold true to those 
high ideals. One little girl when visiting the 
Crystal Palace, upon seeing the sign of the red 
triangle, said: "My daddy always makes that 
mark on his letters when he writes to us at home." 

3. It is his church, for out on the desert, or in 
the jungle, or at the front, there is usually no 
other church building for religious services. The 
following is taken from a typical Sunday program 
in one of the huts : "6 :80 a. m., Roman Catholic 
Mass ; 7 :30 Nonconformist service ; 9 :00 Anglican 
service ; 2-3 p. m., Bible class ; 6 :45-8 United Song 
Service." Thus each denomination is allowed to 
have its own service in its own way on Sunday 
morning, while the evening meeting is interde- 
nominational and open to all. 

In one place where the young Hebrews were 
being sadly neglected and were falling away from 
their former moral standards, the secretary ar- 
ranged with the Jewish rabbi to have a weekly 



WITH THE BHITISH AKMY GD 

service in the YMCA tent for liis iiicii. It lias 
been held ever since. The Jews of the neif^hboring 
city were so grateful that they started a campaign 
to raise a fund of :j;i(),(K)() for Y M C A huts. The 
Rev. Michael Adler, the head Jewish rabbi with 
the forces in France, has time and again expressed 
his cordial appreciation of the help rendered to 
the men of his faith. The doors of the Association 
will always remain open for men of all creeds. 
As wide as the needs of men, as broad as democ- 
racy, as unifie<l as humanity, and as tolerant as 
its Lord and Master, the movement will ever aim 
to be. 

4. The Association hut is the soldier's school. 
Here his classes are held. A program taken at 
random from a single hut will show the scope of 
a week's work: "Bible classes; religious services; 
lecture on The Town Where We Are; lecture on 
South America; lantern lecture on Kussia ; de- 
bating society; impromptu speeches; histor}' 
class.'' 

5. The Association hut is also his place of rest, 
and the shop where he buys his supplies. Here 
he can procure almost anything he needs that 
is decent, and read anything that is wholesome. 
Usually this hut is the only clean place of recrea- 
tion in the camp, and without it he is left to 
choose between the cheerless tent and the beer 
canteen. 

0. The Y M C A is the center of his recreation 
and his entertainment bureau. Under the leader- 



70 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

ship of Miss Lena Ash well and scores of others, 
concerts and entertainment parties have been 
organized and have toured continuously in 
France, Great Britain, Egypt, and the more dis- 
tant camps. The six artists of each party are 
received with tremendous enthusiasm and become 
the fast friends of Tommy Atkins. One writes: 
"Last time the party came here the press of men 
waiting on the verandah to go into the second per- 
formance was so great that our brand new 
verandah collapsed with the sound of a bomb ex- 
plosion! Luckily the mass was so tightly packed 
that they fell through in a solid heap; no one 
was hurt, and all were able to enjoy the concert 
thoroughly." 

7. It is the soldier's bank, and his postoffice. 
We were in one hut alone where more than fif- 
teen thousand dollars were on deposit in the sav- 
ings bank. The sale of stamps in this hut amounts 
to fifteen hundred dollars a month, and of postal 
orders for the remittance of money home to more 
than four thousand dollars. Every week an 
average of 28,000 letters are written and posted 
in this one room, while thousands more are re- 
ceived and handed to the men, 

8. The Association is the soldier's friend and 
tourist guide, while he is visiting London, Paris, 
or the other great cities. In some places one 
table is set apart where a chaplain or secretary 
is always on duty to help the soldiers make their 
wills, find out their trains to London, answer their 



WITH TIIIC BRITISH AKMY 71 

questions, or i^ive Hhmd the friendly liclp llu'y 
need. 

The YMCA stands by the soldier to the last 
and even after he falls. Afler the boy has fon^ht 
his last ti<;hl an<l lies wonnded or erii»i)led or 
ilyin^ in the hospital in France, it meets his 
I)arents an<l i-elalives and provides for theii- entire 
stay in the eonntry. Eiich i-elative of Wut wonnded 
proceeding to France receives printed instruc- 
tions from the War OfTKC that the Y M C A will 
meet all the boats and provide transportation and 
accommodations for all who need it while at the 
front. Our friend, Mr. Geddes, broke down as 
he ti'icd to tell us how he and his wife had been 
met on the lonely shores of France by the YMCA 
secretary and motored quickly to the bedside of 
their dying son, only to find that they were just 
too late. The funeral was arranged, even to the 
providing of flowers. The last ministry was per- 
forme<l for the young man away from home and 
for the loved ones left behind, under the triangle 
that will forevermoi-e be red. 

Tims the Association is at once the soldier's 
clnl), ills home, his clinrch, his school, his j)lace 
of rest, his entertainment bureau, his bank and 
postoffice, his tonrisl guide, and the friend that 
stands by him and his bereaved parents at the 
last. Fifteen hundred just such huts and centers 
stretch away from Scotlaml to Ivist Africa, from 
France to Me.sopotamia, from Egypt to India. 
Tould anv other single organization have met 



72 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

all these needs of the men under arms, mobilized 
so quickly, united all denominations, entered all 
lands, and embraced all forms of work secular and 
religious ? 

We conducted meetings for several months 
throughout the camps in the British Isles. At our 
last parade service with the brigade out in the 
open field there were several thousand seated on 
the grass, with their eight bands drawn up in 
front. In every service the battle was on between 
good and evil, between God and mammon, between 
sacrifice and sin. 

One night we visited the sailors' training camp. 
It was a great meeting, with two thousand of the 
sailor boys crowded in a big theater. The con- 
cert was going on when we arrived and the jeers 
and yells of the crowd drowned some of the voices 
of the performers; it was evident that we were 
going to have a hard time to hold the audience. 
Captain 'Teg" stepped to the stage and soon had 
them singing, "We'll Never Let the Old Flag 
Fall." Roars of applause followed and they 
clamored for more. Out in the glare of the foot- 
lights and looking into that sea of faces, we be- 
gan to fight for that audience. There were two 
thousand tempted men whom we should never 
see again. In five minutes the whole theater was 
hushed — you could hear a pin drop. After half an 
hour the meeting was interrupted by the noise of 
the band outside. Surely the men will bolt and 
leave the meeting. We said to them: "Boys, 



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WITH THE BRITISH ARMY 7^ 

there is the band. Let everybody go now who 
wants to go I We arc going on. Every man thai 
wants to make the tight for charac-ter, the fight 
for purity with the help of Jesus Christ, stay with 
us here." Tlicro was a shout from the audience, 
and not a man left the theater. Tlie l)and thun- 
dered on, hut tlie crowd was witli us now, and 
the liopes of liuiidreds of liearts for the things 
that are eternal surged to tlie surface. Several 
hundred men signed the War Roll, pledging their 
allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ. One sailor 
boy came up to thank us, saying that he had all 
but fallen the week before ; and simply for the lack 
of a sixpence he had been saved from sin. With 
God's help he would now live for Christ. An- 
other came up who had been drinking heavily and 
had quarreled with his wife. He did not have 
the price of a postage stamp to write to her. He 
wanted to know how he could be saved from drink. 
Man after man came forward, hungry for human 
help and longing for a better life. 

On another occasion we were with the army 
of Australian and New Zealand troops, as they 
were marching by the King at their last review 
before going to the front. Fortunately, we had 
secured standing room near the King's side, where 
we could watch every smile and action as he 
saluted each passing battalion, and we could even 
hear him sj)eak a kind word now and then to some 
otficer. There were generals to the right of us 
and to the left of us, colonels, majors, captains, 



74 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

officers of every rank, and prominent civilians; 
but the greatest man on that field was the soldier 
himself. With what a swing those clean-cut young 
Australian boys marched past; every man was a 
volunteer and part of that great first army of 
over four millions of men who came forward for 
the defense of the Empire without conscription. 

Hundreds were playing in the massed bands, 
as the long file of men marched by. But time and 
again the firm columns seemed to fade before us, 
and we could not see them for tears, as we realized 
that many of these brave boys were going for- 
ward to die for us. Above, a great aeroplane was 
looping the loop and warplanes were darting to 
and fro. 

Away on the horizon stood the great boulders 
of Stonehenge, erected long before the time of 
the Saxons, the Britons, or even the ancient 
Druids, by the sun-worshippers, who offered their 
human sacrifices on the ancient altar there nearly 
forty centuries before. We looked at those stones, 
where through a mistaken conception of God and 
an inadequate conception of man, human sacri- 
fices were offered long ago. Suddenly we heard 
the crack of the rifles of a body of troops at prac- 
tice, moving forward in open line of battle. To- 
day, through a mistaken conception of God and 
a low conception of man, over 5,000,000 of men 
have already been killed, offered in human sacri- 
fice; while many millions in lands devastated 
are homeless, starving, or ruined in body or soul 



WITH THE BKITISn AKMY 75 

— these are part of llic olVcrin;]:, forced iipoii liu- 
manity by a godless iiiatorialisin, while a divided 

Christian Clnircli stands hv inii)otenl. 

II 

Let us now visit Egypt where we shall witness 
very different scenes. Away on the distant 
horizon are the two triangular points, which grow 
as we approach into the outlines of the great 
pyramids. Beyond are the fifty-eight centers 
which have risen along the banks of the Nile, in 
the metropolis of Cairo, and in the harbors of 
Port Said and Alexandria, and which line the 
Suez Canal and dot the desert even out into the 
peninsula of Mt. Sinai. The sun is setting as we 
climb the great pyramid, which stands a silent 
witness to forty centuries of history which have 
ebbed and flowed at its base, but surely no 
stranger sight has it ever seen than these armed 
camps about it, engaged in this titanic struggle 
of the world. Away to the south towards far 
Khartoum, like a green ribbon in the yellow 
desert, stretches the irrigated basin of the Nile. 
Beyond it is the bottomless burning sand of the 
Sahara. 

Here on the site of Napoleon's ancient battle- 
field is the largest concentration camp in Eg}pt. 
The white tents of the Australasians shelter a 
population as numerous as many a city, with three 
Association buildings for the men. From out the 
great pyramid there is a constant stream of 



76 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

soldiers passing to and fro. And there under tlie 
shadow of the Sphinx are two more Y M C A huts. 
Jessop, the former secretary at Washington, has 
been in charge here, with a large staff of secre- 
taries from Australia and New Zealand. General 
Sir Archibald Murray, in command of the Egyp- 
tian Expeditionary Forces, says : "First of all, the 
men must have mess huts; then we want the 

Y M C A." 

Cairo is the throbbing center of Egypt's life, 
where vice does not lurk in secret, but flaunts 
itself in open effrontery. Our secretaries have 
been at work there in the long lines of men that 
stand outside the places of vice, handing them 
Testaments and urging them to come away. The 

Y M C A has taken over a large amusement center 
in the Ezbekieh Gardens in the very heart of 
Cairo; and in spite of the public saloon nearby, 
with its attraction of music and wine, from two 
hundred to two thousand men are constantly 
thronging the Association rooms. The attractive 
equipment of a garden, an open-air theater, a 
skating rink, baths, supper counters, and a meet- 
ing place, but most of all the personal touch of 
the two earnest secretaries, make the whole work 
effective. The Association has also rented the 
spacious Bourse, where it houses several hundred 
men who are in the city on short leave, while 
its lobby is used for concerts and entertainments. 
During the last action five of the Y M C A huts on 
the Canal Zone were under fire. But there is no 



WITH THE BRITISH AKMY 77 

day passes but that the men under canvas in this 
hot land of Egypt are under fire from temptations 
more <lendly than Turkish bullets. 

Leavinj^ I'^gypt, we passed over the hot and sti- 
fling Ked Sea, across the Indian Ocean, toward 
the sunny plains of India. Away from the snowy 
ridge of the Himalayas, down across the bare 
plains of the north and the rice fields and cocoa- 
nut palms of the tropic south, India lies like a 
vast continent, embracing oue-tifth of the human 
race. It was held before the war by some 75,000 
British and twice as manj' Indian troops. The 
numbers are completely altered now. Almost the 
whole regular force, both Indian and British, are 
away fighting in Mesopotamia, East Africa, 
France, and Egypt, while a new territorial force 
of Kitchener's army of London clerks and Eng- 
lish civilians has taken its place. 

One hundred and fifty secretaries in India were 
ready upon the outbreak of the war. All across 
India the YMC A has opened huts, buildings, or 
tents for the territorial and other forces.^ A 
writer in the Journal of the Royal Sussex Regi- 
ment, at Bangalore, said: ''Somehow the very 
letters, Y M C A have gathered to themselves an 
implication of comfort, pleasure, and welcome; 
we instinctively feel among friends." 



I In addition to the existing work at Baniralore, Maymyo, and Poona, 
Aasocdation privile«ee havp bcvn provided for soldiort) in Lahore, Delhi, 
Multan, Ferozcporo, Jhanai, Lucknow, Mho», Trinuilfhorry, Jubbulpore, 
Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Ahmcdnacar, Ilangoon, Palhousic, Nairn Tal, 
Karachi, Allahabad, and JutoKh. 



78 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

We visited one night the great tent generously 
given by the Viceroy for the work of the terri- 
torials in Delhi. General Sir Percy Lake took 
the chair and the men gathered in the large 
marquee for the meeting. Sherwood Day, of Yale, 
had been in charge of this work during the winter, 
providing a home for the men of the territorials 
in this ancient Indian capital. A series of lec- 
tures by leading Indians served to interpret In- 
dian life and thought to these soldiers, who were 
seeing at once the needs and greatness of the 
Indian Empire at first hand, while leading Indian 
Christians of the type of Mr. K. T. Paul, Dr. 
Datta, and Bishop Azariah told them the fascinat- 
ing story of Indian missions and the history of 
Christianity in Asia. A new sense of race brother- 
hood is taking the place of the old antagonism 
and prejudice, and Indian secretaries stationed 
with English Tommies have become exceedingly 
popular with them. 

From India as a base, the Association has gone 
forward with the advancing columns into Meso- 
potamia and East Africa. As we cross the 
Persian Gulf and follow the winding courses of 
the Tigris and the Euphrates up into the heart 
of Mesopotamia, we find a group of Princeton 
men and some sixty secretaries stationed here 
with the troops, under Leonard Dixon of Canada. 
The men affectionately call him the "padre" ; any- 
one who has ever boxed with Dixon and felt the 
force of his right, knows that he is a man who 



WITH THE BRlTfSH AKMY 79 

has both drive and "i)iiii(h." The troops in Mgmo- 
potamia have been fijjhting often under terrible 
conditions, niarcliing thr()ii<i;h ooze and slime, 
drinkinp the yellow nnliltcred water, decimated 
by the attacks both of sickness and of the enemy. 
In summer the alkali <lust lies four inches deep 
on the floors of their tents, and the thermometer 
stands at 120° in the sultry shade. Dixon racked 
his brain to provide recreation and helpful enter- 
tainment for these hard fighting men. A bioscope, 
comi)etitive concerts, a Christmas tree, a New 
Year's treat, football and hockey tournaments, and 
entertainments of various kinds have been im- 
provised to make the men forget the awful hard- 
ship of the march and of the battle. On Sunday 
the writing tables are full from dawn till dark 
and tons of stationery have been used to keep 
these men in touch with their distant homes. 

The secretaries have been kept busy handling 
the big convoys of wounded as they come down 
the rivers in the boats from the tighting at the 
front. One colonel got up from his sick bed to 
give his testimony unasked as to what the work 
of the Association had meant to these wounded 
men. He said that it was not only the big kettles 
of hot coffee and the caldrons of soup which the 
secretaries brought aboard the boats, not only 
the warm blankets, beef tea, and other comforts 
which had helped the men so much, but the fact 
that when those men entered that barge with its 
weight of human suffering and misery, it seemed 



80 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

that the touch of Another hand unseen was rest- 
ing on the hot brow and feverish pulse of those 
wounded soldiers. 

Bovia McLain, an American secretary, gives 
us a glimpse of a night on a hospital barge, with 
a cold wind and rain-storm sweeping down the 
river. The canvas tarpaulin began to leak like 
a sieve and most of the wounded were cold and 
drenched to the skin. Soon the men were lying 
not only under wet blankets, but actually in two 
or three inches of water on the undrained decks. 
They were packed in like sardines, without pil- 
lows or comforts. "The whole thing was ghastly 
and terrible. Men wanted to change their posi- 
tion or have a broken limb slightly moved, and 
a dozen other wants seemed to demand attention 
all at once. At times I felt the strain so that it 
seemed to me I could not control myself longer, 
but must break down and weep, it was so appall- 
ing." After the men had been made comfortable, 
the workers were ready in the morning with 
supplies of chocolate and tobacco and other luxu- 
ries. It is no wonder that up at the front when 
the secretary invites the men to remain for eve- 
ning prayers sometimes nearly the whole bat- 
talion stays, and one can understand the new 
interpretation given by some soldiers to the letters 
Y. M. C. A. — "You Make Christianity Attractive." 

When the war broke out the Association was 
ready to enter Africa also. With the first con- 
tingent of 60,000 South African troops a number 



WITH THE BRITISH ARMY 81 

of Y M C A secretaries were seut. They erected 
large marquees in local training camps, and there 
prepared the way for the even greater opportunity 
which was to follow in the lOast African cam- 
paign under the Northern Army. The military 
authorities cabled the Association headquarters 
at Calcutta, offering to hand over the army can- 
teens of East Africa to the Y M C A and to cut out 
liquor if the Association would take them over 
and be responsible for the welfare work among 
the troops, looking after their physical, social, 
and moral needs. Instantly, Mr. E, C. Carter, 
the National Secretary of India, cabled back 
accepting the offer. 

The first score of men were sent over to open 
up nineteen centers with the advancing column 
in the jungles of Africa. The 20,000 troops were 
then occupying Swakopnumd, a desolate little 
town surroimded by a sea of burning sand. There 
were no trees, not a blade of grass, nor even the 
song of a solitarj- bird to relieve the monotony. 
The men called it "the land of sin, sand, sorrow, 
and sore eyes." Soon, however, the large hall of 
the Faber Hotel was procured, with accommwla- 
tions for a thousand men. It became the social 
center of the whole camp. So popular was the 
place that the men fairly fought and stniggled 
to get into the building. Every night at 7:.'?0 
the war telegrams were read, and as it was the 
only way to hear the news from the front, each 
tent appointed one man to be at the Y M C A at 



82 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

that hour. On the occasion of the opening of the 
work, one man wrote home: "Two great events 
have happened today — the Y M C A has com- 
menced and I have had a bath." The story will 
never be written as to what the Association meant 
in the hearts of those men who laid down their 
lives fighting in East Africa. On the cross at the 
head of every grave in one section of the dark 
continent is the sentence : *'Tell England, ye that 
pass by, that we who lie here, rest content." Thus, 
from Cairo in the north, from Swakopmund in 
the east, clear to Cape Town in the south, the 
red triangle has followed the army to its last out- 
posts. Space will not permit us to describe the 
huts which have been opened at Salonica, the 
twelve centers at Malta, and others dotted along 
the ports of the Mediterranean. 

Ill 

A new development has now been undertaken 
by the Association among the thousands in the 
munition works in Great Britain. With the whole 
nation organized for war, there are millions of 
workers busily engaged on ten and twelve hour 
shifts, turning out that steady stream of muni- 
tions which must ever flow up to the guns at the 
front, to supply the army fighting there. Here 
are men and women without the excitement and 
the adventure of the front, toiling all day under 
a strain, far removed from home, congested in 
unattractive surroundings, and it is of the utmost 



WITH THE BRITISH AHMY S3 

importance that these workers be kept healthful 
and haitpy. 

We motored down one afternoou to see the 
work that is going on in the great arsenal at 
Woolwich. Outside, where a year aj;o were 
orchards and pastures, are long rows of perma- 
nent buildings which have sprung up on every 
side. To meet this situation the Y M C A has with- 
in recent montlis erected more than a hundred 
huts in the different munition centers, which can 
provide meals for thousands of tired workers. 
These huts have already placed the Association 
in touch with half a million workers. In the first 
hut we visited, three thousand of them were seated 
at meals in two relays, while two thousand sol- 
diers were accommodated in the hut during the 
afternoon and evening. A platform at one end 
had been put up for musical concerts and enter- 
tainments. The price of meals varies from twelve 
to twenty-five cents. Lady Henry Grosvenor and 
other leaders have marshalled a force of fifteen 
hundred voluntary workers in this group of huts. 

So appreciative has the government been of 
this new development, that in addition to provid- 
ing their own government welfare workers to 
look after the women and girls, they are per- 
mitting the munitions manufacturers to build 
new Y M C A huts at government expense for the 
accommodation of the men. We i)assed down long 
rows of dormitories, erected almost in a night, 
where thousands of weary workers were sleeping 



84 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

during the day, preparing for their night shift. 
It was almost a sad sight to see whole huts filled 
with hundreds of boys from fourteen to sixteen 
years of age, all sound asleep at midday. The 
secretaries look after these boys in their rest 
and play and provide healthful surroundings, a 
clean moral atmosphere, and attractive religious 
influences. 

The Young Women's Christian Association has 
entered the open door for work among the women. 
In one place where a young girl from the country 
had been led astray by the temptations of this 
new and monotonous life and had committed 
suicide, the Young Women's Christian Associa- 
tion has erected a large hut to provide for the 
moral welfare of thousands of other girls faced 
by the same temptations. Oh, the dreary drudgery 
that faces these tired women! 

"Rattle and clatter and clank and whirr, 
And thousands of wheels a-spinning — 
Oh, it's dreary work and it's weary work, 
But none of us all will fail or shirk; 
Not women's work — that should make, not mar, 
But the Devil drives when the world's at war; 
And it's long and long the day is." 

The Y W C A has adopted the sign of the blue 
triangle, to distinguish it from the red triangle 
of the Y M C A. The huts bore the touch of deft 
women's hands in the decorations, flowers, and 
signs of cheer and comfort which the ladies have 
provided for these hard worked girls. Before 



WITH THE BRITISH ARMY 85 

the huts were erected some girls liad to sleep in 
the streets all night in the unsanitary communi- 
ties about the works. 

Both the government authorities and the Asso- 
ciation workers have seen a large open door for 
social service among these millions of munition 
workers. For the work here is permanent. Tliese 
great buildings will remain as manuiacturiug 
centers of some kind after the war. The huts 
will still be occupied. Already a new and grow- 
ing body of legislation is being introduced to im- 
prove the conditions of the toilers of old England. 

It is little wonder that the whole nation has 
responded to this work so boldly undertaken on 
such a large scale. From the first gifts have been 
pouring in unsolicited. His Majesty the King, 
patron of the Young Men's Christian Association 
in Britain, has inspected many of the buildings, 
and sent in his contribution, with the following 
note: "His Majesty congratulates the Association 
on the successful results of its War work, which 
has done everything conducive to the comfort and 
well-being of the armies, supplying the special 
and peculiar needs of men drawn from countries 
so different and so distant. It has worked in a 
practical, economical, and unostentatious man- 
ner, with consummate knowledge of those with 
whom it has to deal. At the same time the As- 
sociation by its spirit of discipline, has earned 
the re.spect and approbation of the Military Au- 
thorities." 



86 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

The Queen Mother donated the Alexandra Hut 
in London, which makes provision for the accom- 
modation of soldiers on leave in the city. She 
was seen recently serving tea behind the counter 
in the Association hut to the happy Tommies who 
had come back strained and tired from the front 
to ''Blighty" once more. The Princess Victoria 
has been most tireless in opening Y M C A huts, 
and has given unsparingly of her time and effort 
for the men. 

No one has been more appreciative than the 
military authorities themselves. Lord Roberts, 
four days before his death, wrote expressing his 
appreciation of the work being accomplished. 
His secretary adds : "He hears on all sides noth- 
ing but praise for what the Y M C A is doing at 
the camps." Lord Kitchener, who had inspected 
the huts of the Association in England, France, 
and Egypt, wrote : "From the first the Y M C A 
gained my confidence, and now I find they have 
earned my admiration and gratitude." Mr. 
Asquith, when Prime Minister, after visiting the 
Association huts and attending the religious meet- 
ings said : "The Y M C A is the greatest thing in 
Europe." Lloyd George, the present Premier, said 
recently : "I congratulate the Y M C A. Wherever 
I go I hear nothing but good of the work they are 
doing throughout the country, and we owe them 
a very deep debt of gratitude." 



LIFE IN A BASE CAMP 



CHAPTER V 
LIFE IN A BASE CAMP 



The man who inaugurated YMCA army work 
in France was Joseph Callan. In 1903 he became 
a secretary of the International Committee in 
AHahabad, North India, and later in Colombo. 
Ten years ago in Bangalore he began his wonder- 
ful work for soldiers, which, in time, was to set 
the i)ace and furnish the standard for the Asso- 
ciation work of the present war. 

When the British troops were out in camp, 
Callan opened his big Y M C A tent and beat the 
army canteen in open competition, so that at the 
end of the maneuvers the contractors had to 
haul back much of the liquor unsold. While the 
canteen was being drained of men, Callan was 
running a full show almost every evening. He 
had powerful arc lights placed over the athletic 
field, and night after night tournaments were 
played off, company against company', regiment 
against regiment, until the closing hour of the 
canteen had passed. Lectures, moving pictures, 
and concerts were followed by straight religious 
meetings, with lasting results. The cooperation 
of the Bishop, clerg}-. and chaplains, helped to 
relate permanently these results to the Church. 
89 



90 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

As soon as the commanding officers saw the 
value of this work, they began to cooperate and 
insisted upon its being carried on in every camp. 
In the great maneuvers at Dacca, Callan was in- 
vited to Bengal to run the institutional work for 
the troops at the expense of the government, 
which he did with striking results. Each success 
made the work known to a widening circle of 
officers and men. 

When the war broke out, Callan and Carter 
approached the Viceroy and Commander-in-Chief 
to ask if they could serve the Indian Army as it 
was to start as an expeditionary force to France. 
Since the Mutiny of 1857, with its religious super- 
stition and prejudice about the greased cart- 
ridges, etc., no Christian work had been per- 
mitted in the Indian Army. Finally, however, 
permission was given to the Association to begin 
work with the troops before embarkation. Upon 
arrival in Bombay, our secretaries called upon 
the Commanding Officer, who had wired to the 
General at Headquarters to know what he could 
do to hold his discontented troops together in 
the flooded and crowded quarters about the docks. 
The general had just wired, "Consult the Y M C A 
and ask them to send for their army department." 
He had known of Callan's work at Bangalore, 
Dacca, and other centers, and believed it would 
supply just the missing link with the dissatisfied 
men. When our secretaries called, the Colonel 
had just received the telegram and was prepared 



LIFE IN A BASE CAMP 91 

to give thcin a chaiK-e to see what ihey could do 
for the troops. 

Within twciity-foiir hours a work was orpin- 
ized which kept the sepoys occujjied for all their 
leisure time. Football and hockey and outdoor 
athletics, excursions down the harbor, sea bath- 
ing, lectures, and entertainments were soon in 
full swing. This was the first work of the kind 
ever done for the Indian Army. So instantlj' and 
obviously invaluable did it become that the Com- 
manding Officer insisted that the secretaries 
should accompany the troops on the long and 
much dreaded trip to France, which was a bold 
and untried venture for Indian soldiers. 

It was a historic event when that great tleet 
of some seventy-five ships, the largest assembled 
since the Spanish Armada, freighted with about 
25,000 troops bound for France, East Africa, and 
Persia, weighed anchor, and sailed out of Bombay 
harbor with the first twelve Y M C A secretaries 
on board. Arrived in France, permission was 
finally obtained from the Commander-in-Chief to 
land and begin work on French soil. 

Here the moral problem made the work of the 
Association a crying necessity. Soon there were 
some 25,000 Indian troops concentrated around 
Marseilles. These men could neither .<<afely be 
let out of bounds nor kept contented within 
bounds. A cordon of troops around the camp 
could not keep vice out. The Y M <^ A was nee<led 
as a counter attraction. Upon an outbreak of 



92 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

drinking and immorality on the part of a group 
of Sikh soldiers, the whole garrison was called 
out to witness these men stripped and flogged in 
exemplary punishment. The Sikhs felt this to 
be such a public disgrace that they asked for the 
use of the Y M C A hut in which to hold a council 
meeting. They finally decided to ask one of the 
secretaries to address the whole body of Sikhs 
on the subject of intemperance and impurity, 
for the Association was already tacitly recog- 
nized by all as the dominant moral force in the 
camp. 

One of the Indian secretaries, Mr. Roy, ad- 
dressed the soldiers at their own request for an 
hour and a half, and a remarkable scene of re- 
pentance was witnessed. Men arose on all hands, 
confessing their sins in respect to these two 
special failings and requested that penalties be 
imposed upon them by their own priest in accord- 
ance with the custom of their religion, as a pun- 
ishment for the past and as a guarantee for the 
future. For nearly two hours the men filed by 
their priest receiving penalties. Later on they held 
a service of their own in the Y M C A hut on 
Christmas day and took up a large collection of 
copper coins as a thank-ofifering to the Associa- 
tion. They felt that it had been their one friend 
in a strange land. 

It should be clearly understood, however, that 
of necessity, in the very nature of the case, the 
Government of India imposed upon the secre- 



LIFE IN A BASE CAMP 03 

taries the strict obligation of silence regarding 
the propagation of Ohristianity. They entered 
the work on the understanding tliat the men 
could live out the si)irit of Christ and express it 
in silent ministry under the motive of Christian 
love. 

It was striking to see how much real Chris- 
tianity could be packed into life when speech was 
forbidden. The pent-up prayer and love and 
sympathy of the workers was forced into the 
single channel of silent service. It reminded one 
of those thirty years in our Lord's life, in simple 
secular toil, which could only minister to the 
needs of men over a carpenter's bench. 

It is no small task to undertake to occupy all 
the leisure time of 25,000 men far from home, 
shut up in irk.some camps, easily aroused by 
rumor or superstition. The numbers increased 
until there were finally some 50,000 men to be 
cared for. Athletic fields were secured and games 
were started. Football and hockey were more 
played by the Indians than by the British troops. 
Badminton and volley ball, races and track 
events, were also useful. Indoor games, the 
gramophone, cinemas and concerts, and especially 
Indian dramas, were popular in the evening. Lec- 
tures on geography, history, and moral subjects 
were well attended, and French classes were of 
practical benefit. 

An incalculable service has also been rendered 
in writing letters for the irreat mass of ignorant 



94 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

soldiers to their families in the far-off Indian 
villages, miles away from a railway. Illiteracy, 
superstition, and false rumors existed at both 
ends of the line. Here is a man who has had no 
word from home since he left a year or more 
ago. He hears a baseless rumor or heeds some 
inborn fear that his child is sick, or his wife un- 
faithful, or that he has been cheated out of his 
property. Hundreds of homesick men whose whole 
lives have been bound up in the family circle pour 
in upon the secretaries, begging that they will 
write letters home for them. Here you may see six 
or eight secretaries writing for hours each day, as 
fast as the men can dictate their messages and 
tell their stories. 

Then there arose the problem of how to keep 
these men in touch with their households in 
isolated and illiterate villages in India. Mr. 
Hume, one of the secretaries in Lahore, devised 
a far-reaching plan whereby every letter was for- 
warded through missionaries or Christian work- 
ers or officials to the distant home of the soldier. 
The whole community gathers to hear the news 
from the Indian regiment on the other side of the 
world, and a shout goes up from the village street 
when they learn that their brave Sepoy is not 
dead, as rumor had whispered. A message is sent 
back in eager gratitude from the wife, children, 
and neighbors, and from the united heart of the 
little village to the distant soldier and his fight- 
ing comrades. The Red Triangle has spanned tie 



LIFE IN A BASE CAMP 95 

gulf from the winter cold and the dreary trenches 
in France to the little village on the i)lain.s of 
sunny India, and the grateful hearts at both ends 
somehow dimly know that all this silent ministry 
is in the name of the White Comrade who is the 
Friend of man. 

Here in France the hut must stand as the 
friendly home that gathers up all the best tradi- 
tions of Indian life. It takes the place of the 
banyan tree in the heat of the day, the village 
well, and the meeting place for the men in the 
cool of the evening. Even beyond all hopes it 
hais proved a potent factor for unity, harmony, 
and peace in a time of unrest. It draws the 
British ofl3cers and the Indian men closer to- 
gether, and the Indian secretaries have served 
time and again as the mediators between the two, 
who could so easily have misunderstood each 
other. It j)rovides a common meeting place be- 
tween the caste-ridden and divided Indians them- 
selves, who had no other ground of unity. 

Here are men of different languages and races 
and traditions, from the Gurklias, the brave little 
liill men, to the stalwart Patlians, who come as 
lighting men from far beyond the borders of India 
for the sheer joy of battle. The chances for sup- 
posed loot in the fabled wealth of the West and 
the accumulation of merit by slaying the "unbe- 
lievers" of the enemy, i)r()ve an addwl attraction 
to men born and bred in border warfare. Here 
also are men of three .separate creeds, who have 



96 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

often fought with one another over the issues of 
their faiths — the big bearded Sikhs, with a sol- 
dier's religion, the warlike Mohammedans, who 
fight according to their Koran, and the caste-rid- 
den Hindus. 

As you walk among the tents the smoke of the 
fires hangs heavy over the camp; there is the 
familiar sound of the bubbling rice pots, the smell 
of pungent curry, the babel of many oriental 
tongues, and you seem to be back in the very 
heart of India itself. We gather with the reverent 
Sikhs for their religious worship. They meet 
morning and evening for their prayer service, and 
turn out almost in a body for the weekly Sunday 
meeting. The service consists principally of sing- 
ing and the reading of their sacred scripture, the 
Granth. Seated on the ground, the men show 
deep reverence, and seem to have a sense of the 
presence of God in their midst. Their religion 
has a real restraining influence and there is at 
present little immorality amongst them. 

A little further on in the camp one comes upon 
an improvised Mohammedan mosque. Five times 
a day a devout soldier calls the faithful to prayer, 
and on Friday about three-fourths of them come 
out to their voluntary service. The Hindus, on 
the other hand, dependent upon ceremonial rites, 
without their temple or priest and with no or- 
ganized public worship, have not a religion which 
holds them in such a vital grip in this distant 
land. 



LIFE IN A BASE CAMP 97 

As you f>ass down the camp, tlic band in playing 
for the draft that is inarching oil" to tal<e its place 
in the trenches. The last good-bys are being said 
and little groups are round the secretaries. The 
stalwart Sil<hs are wringing tlieir hands or kneel- 
ing down to wipe the dust from their shoes, or 
thanking them with tears of gratitude. They are 
great cliild-like men, simple of heart, affectionate, 
but lonely and homesick in a distant land. Here 
is a man wlio was once a hard drinker, living an 
immoral life, but today he is keejiing straight. 
Here is another who has resolved to go back to 
India to lead a different life. There were tears 
in the eyes of the secretaries themselves as they 
came back after bidding good-by to the draft, and 
there was compensation after long months of serv- 
ice in the gratitude of the men and in that inner 
voice which says, '*I was a stranger and ye took 
me in." 

After Callan had launched the work among the 
Indian troops, he was called upon to open up the 
work at a large British base camp behind the 
lines in France. Here, beside the vast drill 
ground where Napoleon used to niarshal his 
troops, is a white city of tents, and between 100,- 
000 and 200,000 men are always encamped there 
for training. 

Life in the trenches for the moment drives men 
to God, Init the life in a base camj) is one of fierce 
and insidinns icmiiiat inn. To hold the men in 
tlie faie of such temptations. Callan has erected 



98 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

his buildings in the thirty principal centers of 
this base. Here is a typical hut before us, built of 
plain pine boards, 120 feet long and 60 feet broad. 
It accommodates from 2,000 to 3,000 men a day 
and is used by three-fourths of the men in the 
camp, by practically all, in fact, except those who 
are confined to their hospital beds. These thirty 
huts will be filled all winter with an average 
of 60,000 men a day. Each night at least 15,000 
men will be gathered in meetings, lectures, and 
healthy entertainments. Twice each week there 
are 12,000 men in attendance at religious meet- 
ings, and not a week passes without hundreds 
of decisions being made for the Christian life. 
In the course of the year a million men will pass 
through these camps, or one-sixth of the manhood 
of the nation now marshalled under arms. These 
are the men who are to be made or marred by 
life in the army, and who will go back to build 
the new empire in the great era of reconstruction 
that is to follow the war. 

To minister to these 60,000 men who daily 
crowd these thirty huts, there are 167 workers 
sent over from England, 100 of them men and 67 
of them women. The latter are nearly all self- 
supporting and not only receive no salary but 
pay all their own expenses. The self-sacrificing 
toil of these helpers, who form part of a vast 
army of 30,000 heroic women who are voluntarily 
serving without compensation in the Associations 
of England and France, is beyond all praise. 




\\'nul.t.>UME AND KNTtRTAINlNG 




I C^Ww,.^ t ('•^••Md 



Home Refreshments in London 



LIFE IN A BASE CAMP 99 

Their very presence in tlie camps is the greatest 
single moral factor for the creation of that in- 
definable atmosphere which pervades every hut. 
Even rude and coarse men never think of swear- 
ing or speaking an indecent word within these 
walls. Nor do they forget to be grateful for the 
tireless service of these women, who stand for 
hours day and night serving them and providing 
for their physical necessities. The women work- 
ers are under the direction of Lady Rodney, who 
has had four sons fighting at the front, one of 
whom has already fallen in action. The men have 
been thrilled and moved to the depths as Lady 
Rodney has addressed them on "What Are 
We Fighting For?'' and by her message to the 
men from the women at home. Several hundred 
of the choicest women of America will be needed 
for service among our own troops. They should 
be women who can stand for the whole principle 
of the red triangle. They must be ready for tire- 
less and exhausting physical service, able to work 
with others without friction, prepared to meet 
the social needs of the men and to give a sympa- 
thetic hearing to the tales that will be poured into 
their ears, but above all they must be able to give 
a definite Christian message to men fiercely 
tempted and beset by doubts and ditliculties. 
The soldier cannot live by bread alone, nor by 
the tea and cofi'ee of a Y M C A counter; he needs 
God, and the friendship of good women, and the 
spirit of home which they carry with them. 



100 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

The hundred men who are working in these 
thirty British huts are worthy of note. A score 
of them are clergymen, who have resigned their 
churches for the period of the war. Many others 
are well-known ministers, laymen, or professors 
who have come over for a period of several 
months of service. The list of the men who have 
been serving here contains many distinguished 
names. There is Professor Burkett, the New 
Testament scholar of Cambridge, in charge of 
one of the huts; Professor Bateson, the great 
biologist of Cambridge, who has been lecturing 
on his subject, and who was swept off his feet 
by the response which he received from the troops. 
He stated that he was able to learn more from 
these men than in months of research in his 
laboratory, where he had been shut up for most 
of his life. Professor Holland Rose, also of 
Cambridge, has been lecturing to the troops on 
European history, interpreting the war to the 
soldier. Professor Oman, of the same university, 
has been dealing in his lectures with the historical 
problems of the war. Rev. E. A. Burroughs, of 
Oxford, has been giving religious lectures. Prin- 
cipal D. S. Cairns, of Aberdeen, has had crowded 
meetings night after night for his apologetic 
lectures, and the questions raised in the open dis- 
cussions would make one think he was in a theo- 
logical seminary. Principal Ritchie, of Notting- 
ham, has been lecturing on European history and 
the Balkan situation. Bishop Knight is giving 



LIFE IN A BASE CAMP 101 

his time seven days a week to looking after the 
spiritual and ecclesiastical needs of tlie men, as 
many seek confirnuition and partake of the Holy 
Communion before going up to the front. Here 
are Scotch ministers, Anglican clergymen, and 
laymen, working side by side in a great ministry 
of service. 

A series of missionary lectures has helped to 
give the men a new world view of Christianity. 
It has lifted the simple villager, and the man who 
has never known anything save the narrow ruts 
of his own denomination, above the petty interests 
and divisions of his former life to face world 
problems and the wide extension of the Kingdom 
of God. Four lecturers have followed each other 
to present a great world view to the men in these 
thirty huts: Butcher of New Guinea showed the 
effect of the impact of the Gospel upon primitive 
native races; Farquhar of India showed the 
power of Christianity over the great ethnic reli- 
gions of India; Lord Wm. Gascoyne Cecil came 
next on the transformation of China, and was 
followed by Dennis of Madagascar and Dr. Datta, 
a living witness of the power of Christianity in 
the great Indian empire. John McNeill and 
Gipsy Smith, the well-known evangelists, have 
•spoken to thousands and have brought the chal- 
lenge of the Christian Gospel to the men, calling 
upon them for decisions and a change of life in 
harmony with the teachings of Christ. 

Here are some of the linest spirits of England, 



102 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

some of its intellectual and spiritual leaders, 
brought into daily contact with the manhood of 
the nation in this formative period and epoch- 
making crisis. Before us hangs the program for 
the week. It looks like the schedule of classes 
and lectures for some great university. It is 
drawn up- in seven columns for the seven days 
of the week, and includes a score of centers, with 
an average of three events for each hut per day. 
It would cover several closely printed pages. 
Here are some of the events scheduled for a single 
night : 

Hut No. 1, lecture on "The Meaning of Chris- 
tianity," by Mr. A. D. Mann; choir rehearsal; 
devotional meeting. No. 2, Rev. Butcher of New 
Guinea, lecture on "The Failure of Civilization"; 
French class; Clean Talk League. No. 3, lecture 
by Lord Wm. Cecil on China ; French class ; hobby 
class. No. 4, cavalry band orchestra; Com- 
munion Service; evening prayers. No. 5, Lena 
Ashwell Concert Party from London. No. 6, Rev. 
N. H. M. Aitken, Bible lecture and discussion; 
orchestral band. No. 7, concert party; general 
hospital show. No. 8, lecture on Napoleon by 
Mr. Perkins; Mrs. Luard's concert party. No. 
9, concert given by the men of the auxiliary park 
camp; draughts tournament. No. 10, religious 
discussion class; Lord Wm. Cecil; service con- 
ducted by Chaplain Berry. No. 11, Professor 
Thos. Welsh's Bible class; mid-week rally. No. 
12, fretwork and carpentry class; games; letter 



LIFE IN A BASE CAMP 103 

writing. No. 13, mid-week service; Bible clasH; 
letter writing. No. 14, cinema «how; indoor 
games. No. 15, lantern lecture on "India in the 
Trenches." No. 10, ladies' concert party; Hindi 
and Urdu classes; letter writing; games. All 
of this covers only the program for half of the 
huts on a single night! 

Principal Fraser, of Ceylon and Uganda, but 
equally conversant with present-day problems in 
Britain, has been conducting a weekly parliament 
in dirt'orent cami)s on the great questions of recon- 
struction after the war. For here are men away 
from home, lifted above the toil and narrow 
drudgery of their former cramped lives, and they 
have learned to think. 

There is evidence of wide industrial and social 
unrest. The men are conscious not only of world 
wrongs which threaten their country from with- 
out, but of wrongs within as well, and they are 
going to demand that these wrongs shall be 
righted. A deep tide of feeling runs through the 
audience, as these men, blunt of speech but clear 
of brain, openly and frankly discuss the future, 
and they hang eagerly upon the words of Prin- 
cipal Fraser as he guides their thought to higher 
ideals for the period of reconstructioti that is to 
follow. 

One night they are discussing the present social 
order, and what is wrong with it ; the}' are deal- 
ing with bad housing, employment, low wages, 
the cleavage between the rich and the poor, in- 



104 WITH OUR SOLDIEES IN FRANCE 

dustrial oppression, and social injustice. The 
next night they consider the dangers of demobili- 
zation. What will be the effect upon hundreds 
of thousands of women workers? Here are more 
than five million soldiers in the army, and a large 
number of men and women, boys and girls, work- 
ing on government orders. What steps must be 
taken to minimize the dislocation of industry 
and to prevent unemployment? On the night 
following, they discuss the question of industrial 
reorganization. They resolve that ''the time has 
come, as the only means of averting social dis- 
aster, to grant a constitution to the factory, and 
quite frankly to recognize and insist that the 
conditions of employment are not matters to be 
settled by the employer alone, any more than 
by the workmen alone, but in joint conference 
between them; and not even for each establish- 
ment alone, but subject to the National Common 
Rules arrived at for the whole industry by the 
organized employers and employed, in consulta- 
tion with the representatives of the community 
as a whole." 

At the next parliament they discuss the future 
of education in England. What should be its 
aim, how far should it be technical, and how far 
should it aim at the development of personality? 
Should the school-leaving age be raised to fifteen, 
or half-time education be given up to the age of 
eighteen? One night in the parliament they dis- 
cuss the problem of drink and the war; on an- 



LIFE IN A BASE CAMP 105 

other night, gamMiii^; niid on aii(»llicr, the social 
evil. The men who attend tlie lectures and parlia- 
ments of those camps will almost get a lilxTal 
ediH'ation during the tliive years. 

We have spoken of the vast work going on in 
the thirty huts conducted by 1(57 workers in this 
single base camp. Let us now jtass into a typical 
center and observe the work a little more in de- 
tail. For our first illustration, let ns take the 
Y M C A hut in the Convalescent Camp. We select 
this because it is the model of the new huts for 
the American army which are now being con- 
structed. It is a moving sight simply to step in- 
side its doors. Here are two parallel structures 
of simple pine boards, each 120 by 30 feet. They 
may be used separately, in eight different depart- 
ments, including the lecture hall which will seat 
500, or with the partitions raised they may be 
thrown into one large audience hall, holding 
1,200 men. 

A glance at the crowd within, or at the great 
city of white tents without, shows that even this 
building is utterly inade.iuate for this convales- 
cent camp holding 4.000 men. It is a center for 
a dozen surrounding liospitals, each containing 
from 1.000 to 4,000 patients. As the men are 
cured in these hosi)itals they are sent up to the 
Convalescent Camp to be made tit to return to 
till' trenches. It is worth remembering that every 
one of these 4,000 patients is a wounded man, all 
of whom have seen service and sullering. 



106 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

Let us enter first of all the large social hall. 
Several hundred men are seated at the tables, 
playing games or chatting over a cup of tea. At 
one end is the counter, where three women and 
five men take their turn serving during the day 
and evening. Two or three thousand of these men 
will pour in every day this winter. They will 
stand in a long queue filing by the counter for 
more than two hours. Here are large urns, each 
holding ten gallons of tea. Cup after cup is 
rapidly pushed across the counter without turn- 
ing ofif the tap; as 160 men are served in ten 
minutes, and there is no stop save to place a fresh 
urn full of tea. As fast as the workers can move, 
not only hot tea and coffee, but bread and bis- 
cuits, cake and chocolate, tobacco, matches, 
candles, soap, bachelor buttons are furnished, and 
every other need of the soldier is supplied. The 
aim is to meet his every demand, so that he will 
not have to go into the city to places of tempta- 
tion and evil resorts. 

While these men are being served or are seated 
in the social room, meetings and lectures are con- 
ducted at the same time on the other side of the 
partition in the audience hall, which is occupied 
several times a day, and is used for social pur- 
poses between the meetings. We now pass into 
the lounge, which is filled with men, busy at their 
games. Next is the Quiet Room, where no talking 
or writing is allowed. Men come into this room 
for quiet meetings or private prayer, and here 



LIFE IN A BASE CAMP 107 

small fjroup prayor riUHilings and Bible classes 
are hel<i. 

Just outside the hut is a wide wooden platform 
which accommodates several huudred men. There 
nearly a dozen ditferent games are in full swing, 
all at the same time. Each one is designed to 
help the patient recover his health. Here are bad- 
minton, tennis, volley ball, indoor baseball, quoits, 
deck billiards, bagatelle, ping-pong, and other 
games. The front of this platform forms a grand- 
stand for the cricket field beyond. 

Here for three nights we conducted meetings, 
with five or six hundred men in attendance. More 
than a hundred men signed the decision cards 
each night, and when asked it was found that 
one-third of them had made the decision for the 
first time, about one-third of them were back- 
sliders who had been living as Christians before 
the war but who had gone down before tempta- 
tion, while the remaining third had been maintain- 
ing a consistent Christian life during the war. 

In a second after-meeting in the Quiet Room 
one night, men from almost every quarter of the 
globe spoke and gave testimony. Here was one 
poor fellow who had come over after several 
years in the States. He had had delirium tremens 
three times, and showed the effects of it on his 
face. He had formerly been the center of the 
foul talk and vulgar language of his tent. He 
had now come straight out for Christ and had 
boldly witnessed for Him before the men. The 



108 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

second boy, the son of a prominent officer in 
South Africa, arose under deep emotion. He had 
been living a wild and reckless life and was 
known as the "Red Light King," After his con- 
version, he went out and brought in another com- 
rade who openly decided for Christ. There were 
boys from Canada, Australia, and England who 
followed, many of them with tragedies in their 
past lives. 

It is impossible to calculate the vast influences 
for good that have been flowing from this hut 
to the thousands of men who pass through it. 
The aim of the young Scotch minister who is the 
leader has been to make it for all the men "a 
home away from home." The life in the army, 
with its irksome toil, daily drill, cold and wet and 
mud, the horror of battle and the pain of wounds, 
is all for the moment forgotten as the men enter 
the place. 

We tell the leader that we are taking this build- 
ing as the model for our new American camps. 
He says: "Large as this hut is, it is not large 
enough or good enough for the men. Daily we 
have need for better equipment. This hut as it 
stands will serve from two thousand to three 
thousand men in a day, but nothing is too good 
for these boys who are coming here to suffer 
and die in this faraway land. You will send 
your sons over from America to spend this cold 
winter on the bleak plains of France in open bell 
tents. They will b6 fed on canned goods and 



LIFE IN A BASE CAMP 109 

corned beef, and they will bo lionsed in the most 
unattractive towns of France, where there i.s abso- 
lutely no interest or diversion apart from drink 
and women. You can hardly realize what it 
means to sit down in a homelike place, to get a 
hot cup of tea served on a white tablecloth. This 
is the only home these boys will see in France, 
and they will either come here or go to the red 
light resorts. I wish I could tell the men of 
America what their boys will face here, what 
they will suffer, what temptations will assail 
them. The best equipment you can give them is 
not good enough, for the people at home little 
realize to what a life their boys are coming, and 
what hardships will face them here in France." 



THE CAMP OF THE PRODIGALS 



CHAPTER VI 

THE CAMP OF THE PRODIGALS 

' We are in a natural amphitheater of the forest, 
near a big base hospital, about seventy miles be- 
hind the lines in France. Always in the stillness 
of the woods, even at this distance, one can hear 
the intermittent boom of the big guns at the front, 
and the air is vibrant on this summer evening. 
Beyond the wood lies the old drill ground of 
Napoleon, which is used today as a field for final 
training for the reenforcements for the front line. 
In this wide open space in the woods at sun- 
down the patients of the hospital in their blue 
uniforms are gathering for the meeting. It is a 
picturesque sight to see about eight hundred of 
them seated on the grass, while an orchestra com- 
posed of their own men is playing before the 
opening of the meeting. Who are these men be- 
fore us? They are not the wounded who have 
fallen on the field of honor, but the sick, and, 
quite frankly, they all have venereal disease. The 
war has dragged this moral menace so into the 
light of day that the times of prudish silence and 
of falal iguoraiKO should have i)assed for all 
who are truly concerned for the welfare of the 
soldier and who want to know his actual condi- 
113 



114 WITH OUE SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

tions. We shall, therefore, in this chapter call a 
spade a spade. 

The eight hundred men gathered here are a 
small part of some thousands of similar cases in 
France. The London Daily Mail of April 25th, 
1917, referring to the report of the military au- 
thorities to the House of Commons, stated that 
there had been some two hundred thousand cases 
of venereal disease in the British Army in France 
alone. This does not include England or the men 
on the other fronts. The British Army is not 
worse than others. Professor Finger, at a meet- 
ing of the Medical Society in Vienna early in the 
war, estimated that over 700,000, or some ten per 
cent of the Austrian troops, had contracted 
venereal disease. More ominous still is the fact 
that in almost every place yet investigated the 
majority of the men were confessedly living in 
immorality amid the temptations of the base 
camps in France. 

As we visit the hospitals in France, we are 
saddened by the fact that for one of the two 
venereal diseases no cure has yet been found, that 
a large proportion of these cases suffer a relapse, 
and that over seventy per cent will develop com- 
plications. As one Commanding Medical OflScer 
said, "There is enough venereal disease in these 
military camps now to curse Europe for three 
generations to come." 

One young major said : "Every day I am losing 
my boys. I've lost more men through these forces 



THE CAMP OF THE PRODIGALS lir, 

of iiiimoi'iility tli;iii through the eueiny's Hhol and 
shell." The recent report of the Koyal Commis- 
sion shows the grave menace of the <lisease to 
IJritain, where twenty per cent of the nrban popu- 
lation has been infected. Flexner's terrible in- 
dictment in his ''Prostitution in Europe" proves 
how particularly dangerous and pernicious is the 
system of inspection and regulation which legal- 
izes and standardizes vice as a ''necessary evil" 
and spreads disease through the false sense of 
security which it vainly promises. According to 
Flexner's statements, our men are fighting in the 
land which of all others is perhai)s the most 
dangerous in Europe for their moral welfare. 
Even if the inspection and regulation of vice were 
physically perfectly successful, it might still lead 
to national degeneration, but instead of being a 
success it has proved, especially in France, a 
miserable failure. 

Among the men in the venereal hospitals of 
France are musicians, artists, teachers, educated 
aiul refined boys from some of the best homes, 
and in another camp we find several hundred 
officers and several members of the nobility. 
What was the cause of their downfall? A ques- 
tionnaire replied to by several hundred of them 
revealed the fact that six per cent attributed their 
downfall to curiosity, ten per cent to ignorance, 
claiming that they had never been adequately 
warned by the medical authorities, thirteen per 
cent to loss of home iulluences and lack of leave, 



116 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

thirty-three per cent to drink and the loss of self- 
control due to intoxication, while the largest num- 
ber of all, or thirty-eight per cent, attributed it 
to uncontrolled passion when they were uncon- 
verted or had no higher power in their lives to 
enable them to withstand temptation. But per- 
haps the chief cause of the spread of immorality 
is the unnatural conditions under which the men 
are compelled to live in a foreign land in war 
time. 

Donald Hankey, the brilliant young author of 
"A Student in Arms," who fell at the front, 
speaks thus of the moral problem in the soldier's 
life: 

"Let us be frank about this. What a doctor 
might call the 'appetites' and a padre the 'lusts' 
of the body, hold dominion over the average man, 
whether civilian or soldier, unless they are coun- 
teracted by a stronger power. The only men who 
are pure are those who are absorbed in some 
pursuit, or possessed by a great love; be it the 
love of clean, wholesome life which is religion, or 
the love of a noble man which is hero-worship, or 
the love of a true woman. These are the four 
powers which are stronger than 'the flesh' — the 
zest of a quest, religion, hero-worship, and the love 
of a good woman. If a man is not possessed by 
one of these he will be immoral. . . . Fifteen 
months ago I was a private quartered in a camp 

near A . . . . The tent was damp, gloomy, 

and cold. The Y M C A tent and the Canteen tent 
were crowded. One wandered off to the town. 
. . . And if a fellow ran up against 'a bit of 
skirt' he was generally just in the mood to fol- 



THE CAMP OF THE PRODIGALS 117 

low it wherever it might lead. The moral of this 
is, (louhlo your !sul)S(ri|)ti()ns to the Y M C A, 
Church huts, soldit'rs' clubs, or whatever organi- 
zatiou Vdu fancy! You will ho helping to combat 
vice in the only sensible way." 

We agree with Donald Ilaukey that the ap- 
petites hold dominion over the average man, 
whether civilian or soldier. We do not wish to 
make any sweeping generalizations or accusa- 
tions. We have no means of knowing how many 
men are immoral in peace time, as we have in 
war time. We only know that conditions of 
ordinary times are intensified, aggravated, and 
niultij)lied ; and they are revealed in war time as 
never before, and thrown upon the screen of the 
public gaze. The writer also desires to guard 
against any possible impression that the British 
army is worse than our own or any other. It is 
too early to know what record our men will make, 
but we find it ditlicult to believe that they could 
have maintained a higher standard if placed in 
equal numbers in the same circumstances. 

But to return to our meeting. Everj' one of 
these eight hundred men in this audience has a 
history. Tired or hardened or haggard faces are 
relaxed as they join in singing the hymns on this 
Sunday evening, ^'Nearer, My God, to Thee," 
''Lead, Kindly Light," "Tell Me the Old, Old 
Story," and ''Where is my Wandenng Boy To- 
night?" There is a tragedy in every heart, and 
each man has experienced the bitterness of sin 



118 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

and bears its scars branded in his body. Look 
into the faces of some of these men. Here in 
front, this very first one, is an American cowboy 

from Texas, Frank B . As a "broncho-buster" 

he became the star rider in Buffalo Bill's Wild 
West Show and was finally adopted as his son. 
At the age of fifteen he started to go wrong in New 
Orleans. At an early age he joined the American 
army, and later, at the outbreak of the war, he 
served in the Flying Corps of the British army. 
Here he broke a leg and was smashed up in action. 
After that he joined an infantry division. In one 
of the meetings this week he accepted Christ. He 
has since been standing firm and goes out tomor- 
row to begin a new life. Near him is a young theo- 
logical student with a sad look on his face, who 
has learned here in bitterness the deepest lesson 
of his life. Next to him is a heartbroken married 
man with a wife and children at home. 

After the crowd has assembled, we speak to 
them of Christ as the Maker of Men. We tell 
them of the transformation of others like them- 
selves, of Augustine, Francis of Assisi, Loyola 
and the saints of old, of John B. Gough, Jerry 
McAuley, Hadley, and the men of Water Street 
whom God raised out of the depths, and of men 
right in their midst who have come out for Christ 
in the meetings this week. After speaking for 
an hour, we go into the Y M C A for an after- 
meeting. 

We had a wonderful time with them here one 



THE CAMP OF THE PRODIGALS 119 

Saturuay night. PMve hundred of them crowded 
Ihc hall and listened for an hour as we Hpoke on 
(he good news of Ihe free oiler of life. When the 
invitation was given, over two hundred stayed to 
the after-nieeling as desiring to follow Christ. 
After we had spoken one of the men came forward 
and asked if he could say a word. He had been 
an earnest Christian before the war, and as he 
began to speak of his fall and of his trusting wife 
and children at home, the poor fellow broke down 
in utter wretchedness. It seemed to strike a 
responsive chord in the hearts of the married men 
all over the room. Many a one buried his head 
in his hands and wept bitterly. A second after- 
meeting was held and God seemed to be moving 
in the heart of every man present. Man after 
man rose to tell of his fall, or of his repentance, 
or of his new acceptance of Christ. The feeling 
was deep but controlled. It was one of the sad- 
dest and yet one of the gladdest meetings I have 
ever attended. One minister present said he had 
seen nothing like it all through the Welsh re- 
vival. 

During their stay in this hospital great changes 
have taken place in many of these men. Here is 
Dan, a young chauffeur, a strong-willed, self- 
suflScient young fellow who thought he needed no 
help and no religion. He has a Christian wife 
at home to whom he has been untrue, for the temp- 
tations of the war swept him off his feet like a 
flood. In the meetings this week he turned to 



120 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

Christ and has been working right and left bring- 
ing in others ever since. Beside him is a poor 
fellow whom he has just brought to the meetings. 
He went on leave to England, only to find his 
three children deserted by his wife, who had run 
away, untrue to him. At last he found her, and 
brought her home. On his return to the army, 
he finds that now he has to bear here in the hos- 
pital the vicarious result of her fall. He came 
to me as a non-Christian struggling with the prob- 
lem of forgiveness. Could he forgive her all this 
and his broken home? At last in Christ he found 
the power to forgive and took up his heavy cross. 
He knelt at the altar of the little chapel and 
yielded up his life to God. Tomorrow he leaves 
the hospital to begin a new life. 

Here is a young Australian who was untrue to 
his wife. When we first saw him he was hardened 
by sin. That night he yielded to Christ. The 
next Sunday we knelt beside him at the Lord's 
Supper. He was a new man; his very face was 
changed. He said, "I have read of miracles in the 
past, but there was never a greater miracle than 
the change which has taken place in my heart 
and life. I am a new man. I can look any one 
in the face today !" 

Beside him at that communion table knelt a 
young gunner, "Joe," of the Royal Field Artillery. 
He was a strong, red-cheeked six-footer, winsome 
and good to look upon, the most popular man in 
his battery. Away from home among bad com- 



THE CAMP OF THE PRODIGALS 121 

panions he was swept otX his feet and fell. He 
has found Christ here among the prodigals in a 
far country. Before leaving he came np to bid 
us good-by, saying, "I'm going out to warn other 
men and to witness for Christ to the end of my 
days." 

Here is M , a young sergeant, who came up 

after the meeting, with tears in his eyes. "Sir," 
he said, *'I was never drunk but once in my life, 
when my pals were home on leave, and that once, 
under the influence of drink, I fell. Here I am 
in the hospital, yet I am engaged to a little girl 
at home who is as white as snow. What is my 
duty in the matter?" He has accepted Christ 
and is a changed man. 

Oh, it is a wonderful sight to see men trans- 
formed by this inward moral miracle, wrought 
by the touch of the living God. Here in the very 
center of this venereal camp stands the Y M C A, 
endeavoring to meet their every need, and even 
here the red triangle shines with the hope of a 
new manhood for body, mind, and spirit. Every 
day at the hour of opening there is a scurry of 
feet as the men rush in to the one center in the 
whole camp where they can congregate. Martin 
Harvey has just been here to cheer them up, and 
they were enthusiastic over a fine lecture and 
recital last night on Chopin. The Colonel in com- 
mand takes particular pride in the Y M C A for 
his men, and states that crime among them has 
been reduced ninety per cent since it started. 



122 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

But eveu greater than the privilege which the 
Association has in ministering to the fallen, is 
its work of prevention in the other camps. Just 
up the road is a swearing old major in command 
of a unit which has always had the worst record 
for immorality and disease of any camp on the 
plain. He finally came in and demanded a Y M C A 
hut for his men. A few weeks later he came to the 
Association headquarters and said, in punc- 
tuated language which could not be printed, "For 
a year and a half my camp has led all the rest 
as the worst in venereal disease, with some twenty- 
five fresh cases every week. The first week after 
the Y M C A was opened we had only ten cases, 
the next week six, the third week only two, and 
it has not risen above that since. Your Associa- 
tion is the best cure for this evil." 

Nothing less than reaching the whole man can 
meet this gigantic problem. You must take physi- 
cal precautions and build up a strong, clean, 
athletic body. Better than all repressive rules 
and regulations, you must provide healthy and 
happy occupation for the minds of the men. But 
beyond the reach of medical and military re- 
strictions you have got to grip and strengthen 
their spiritual and moral nature. Otherwise, in 
the artificial and unnatural conditions consequent 
upon a vast concentration of men in a foreign 
land, away from all home influences, and in the 
poisonous atmosphere of a land of "regulated" 
immorality, where the government is in league 



THE CAMP OF THE PRODIGALS 123 

with it as a "necessary evil," you must «ee your 
men fall in ranks before the machine guns of 
commercialized vice, coiitrollod by the vested in- 
terests, or fall a i)rey to (be barpies who walk the 
streets. In the face of all this we must lay bold 
claim to tbe whole of manhood for God and for 
the high ends for wbicb it was created. 

The writer recently walked through a French 
street of licensed vice, where strong young fellows 
were tossing away their birthright for a mess of 
pottage. He passed on the main street of the city 
two young Americans from a medical unit who 
were reeling along in tbe i)ossession of two har- 
pies. They were shouting to all the passers by, 
trying to hold up the carriages, and widely adver- 
tising their uniform and their nation. We recog- 
nize the difficulty of maintaining a high moral 
standard in a foreign land in war time, but we 
believe it can be done. A plan has recently been 
suggested by the Association for dealing with this 
menace. 

First of all, it is proposed to conduct a cam- 
paign of education on the highest moral grounds 
by a select group of lecturers, capable of present- 
ing wisel}' the danger of immorality from both 
the medical and moral standpoints. This will in- 
volve the preparation of lectures, charts, lantern 
slides, tilms, and everytbing neetled for tbe etfec- 
tive presentation both to the ear and eye. It is 
hopeil that these lecturers will be able to in- 
struct cbai»lains, Y M C A secretaries, and all who 



124 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

are responsible for the moral leadership of the 
troops, in order that they may be better able to 
cope with the situation. It is proposed that these 
lecturers conduct meetings for three days in each 
center, with a parade lecture for each battalion 
and voluntary meetings in the evening, which 
will include addresses on hygiene, lantern lec- 
tures, and moral talks. Healthy literature will 
be prepared and distributed to the men, and 
similar campaigns will be conducted in the camps 
in the United States and on shipboard before the 
troops reach France. 

Second, a positive program for the occupation 
and amusement of the men will be provided. 
Athletic sports, games, tournaments, track meets, 
and other events will offer adequate physical facil- 
ities. Amusements, entertainments, concerts, 
classes, and lectures will be arranged for the 
mental occupation of the men. Meetings, per- 
sonal interviews, and services will be planned to 
keep before them the moral and spiritual chal- 
lenge and the call for clean living. Special cam- 
paigns will be carried on in all Y M C A huts from 
time to time. 

Third, we would favor strict regulations and 
penalties to cope with immorality. We are glad 
that the selection of camp sites for the American 
troops in France is being made at places as far 
removed from the temptations of the cities as 
possible, where the men will be kept under closer 
supervision than could be done if the troops were 



THE CAMP OF THE PK0DIGAL8 125 

located near large centers of population. Other 
means are being provided which cannot here be 
mentioned. 

In the fourth place, we favor adequate medical 
provisions, coupled with the highest moral re- 
straints. We will take our stand against any 
league with vice, against anj recognition of im- 
morality as a "necessary evil." We will stand 
against all notices, lectures, or medical talks 
such as are given in some quarters, which prac- 
tically serve as an invitation or solicitation to 
immorality. We would oppose any provision on 
the x)art of the authorities to provide in advance 
for immorality, to standardize it, accept it, and 
attempt to render it safe, and we would oppose 
any mention of it which tends to advertise and 
increase the evil. We would strenuously oppose 
the running of supervised houses of prostitution 
by our own military authorities, as was done by 
some of them on the Mexican border. Conceiv- 
ably a system of inspected government houses and 
of prophylactic measures might be devised which" 
would eliminate disease altogether, and yet de- 
moralize the young manhood of our nation by 
a cynical scientific materialism such as we are 
fighting against in the powers that dragged the 
world into this war. We are more opposed to 
iniiuoralit}' than to disease, which is its penalty. 
We fear not only the impairment of the physical 
fitness of the men as a fighting force, but much 
more the menace of the moral degradation of the 



126 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

manhood of the nation, under the unnatural con- 
ditions of wartime. 

We believe that the hearty cooperation of the 
medical and moral agencies and of the military 
and voluntary forces which have to do with the 
men, can greatly reduce both immorality and 
disease. We feel sure, moreover, that the solid 
backing of public opinion in America will support 
every effort to surround our camps with a zone 
of safety and to keep the men clean and strong 
in the multiplied dangers of a foreign land, as 
well as in the military camps of our own country. 
It is reassuring to know that our military au- 
thorities abroad have taken a strong stand and 
that in no army in Europe are drunkenness and 
the contraction of venereal disease more instantly 
court-martialled or more severely punished. 



RELIGION AT THE FRONT 



CHAPTER VII 
RELIGION AT THE FRONT 

The war, like a great searchlight thrown across 
our individual and national lives, has revealed 
men and nations to themselves. It has shown us 
the nation's manhood suddenly stripped of the 
conventionalities, the restraints, and the outward 
respectability of civil life, subjected to the trial 
and testing of a prodigious strain. It has shown 
us the real stuff of which men are made. It is 
like the X-ray photographs now constantly used 
in all the military hospitals, and placed in the 
windows of the operating rooms, to guide the sur- 
geon in discovering the hidden pieces of shrapnel 
or .shattered bones which must be removed in 
order to save the patient. 

The war has been a great revelation of things 
both good and bad. In the light of this terrible 
conflict, we may well ask what it shows us of the 
present virtues and vices of the men, and of our 
past failure or success in dealing with them, and 
to what future course of action it should summon 
us? In other words, what lessons has the war to 
teach us? Large numbers of young clergymen 
and laymen of the churches of England and Scot- 
land have gone to the war zone with the men as 
chaplains, Y M C A workers, or in the army itself, 
129 



130 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

and have learned to know men as they never knew 
them before. We would covet this opportunity 
for every young minister or Christian worker in 
America. Mr. Moody once stated that the Civil 
War was his university. It was there he learned 
to understand the human heart and to know and 
win men. 

During the summer of 1917 a questionnaire 
was sent out to representative religious workers 
throughout the armies in France and Great Bri- 
tain by a committee under the chairmanship of 
the Bishop of Winchester and Professor D. S. 
Cairns, with Mr. E. C. Carter of the Y M C A, and 
the Rev. Tissington Tatlow of the Student Chris- 
tian Movement, as secretaries. Although the re- 
sults and findings of this committee are not yet 
published, the writer has before him the reports 
of numbers of workers in France. In the base 
camp where he was last working, the questions 
were taken up by more than a hundred of the 
workers and discussed in conferences with groups 
of the soldiers ^nd officers of the various regi- 
ments. These were summarized in findings and 
the reports were compared with the returns made 
from other centers. The writer has had the privi- 
lege of talking with hundreds of the soldiers 
regarding their own religious lives and difficul- 
ties. In this chapter he will try to form a com- 
posite photograph of all these impressions and 
to state impartially the results of his own ex- 
perience and those of others. 



RELIGION AT THE FKONT 131 

We shall confine ourselves to three outstanding 
questions: I. What are the moral standards and 
actions of llie men in war lime? II. What is 
their attitude to reliy;ion and what is their reli- 
gious life at the front? III. What is their atti- 
tude to the chnrilies, and what lessons may the 
Church learn from the men at the front? 

The questionnaire has been answered mainly 
by men of tlie British army, but the writer could 
observe no radical ditlerence between the British 
and American forces as regards their religious 
life. As in other things connected with the war, 
we in America may learn much from the experi- 
ence of Britain and other nations. 



What are the moral standards and actions of 
the men in icar time? At the very beginning, we 
must recognize the difficulty and danger of gen- 
eralizations. No two men in the army are pre- 
cisely alike. All sweeping generalizations are 
likely to be misleading. Kegiments differ from 
one another and workers receive diflfering impres- 
sions of the front. Most of all we must dis- 
tinguish between the ditferent classes in the army. 

It has been repeatedly affirmed that not more 
than 20 per cent of the men now under arms 
among the British troops were connected with 
the churches in any vital way before the war, or 
were regular in attendance at their services. Of 
this minority perhaps a half — those who were 



132 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

weak or nominal Christians before the war or 
have lost the higher standards of peace time or 
have hidden whatever religion they may have 
had — would not now be classed as definitely 
Christian men. But the remaining half, or one- 
tenth of the total number in the army, would 
probably be out-and-out Christians, strengthened 
by the severe discipline of the war and living 
under distinctly Christian standards. 

At the other or lower extreme, there are per- 
haps one-tenth who are so-called "rotters," the 
men who set the evil standards of the camp and 
whose conduct is almost altogether selfish and 
materialistic. Between these two extremes are 
the great majority, or four-fifths, whom it is so 
diflQcult to classify. It is our conviction that 
these men "are not saved, but are salvable." 

What are the moral standards of this majority? 
They are not definitely Christian. Rather, they 
have a military, material standard of the type 
of a somewhat primitive social group. Their ex- 
pressions unconsciously reveal their judgments. 
Their constant demand of one another is "to play 
the game," that is, to play fair and to do one's 
part in order to win the game for the good of 
all. Anything which harms, hinders, or endan- 
gers another, which brings suffering to one's fel- 
lows or defeat to one's side, is not playing the 
game. They condemn unmanly actions which 
bring defeat, and praise the practical and virile 
virtues. As one chaplain writes : "I believe nearly 



RELIGION AT THE FRONT 133 

all live partly by faith in a good God, I have 
never found men afraid to die, even thougli they 
were afraid before battle. As to the standards 
by which they live, I should say they are the 
sanctions of <^roui» morality. They have very lax 
ideas about <lrunkenues8 and sexual irregulaiity, 
but they have very strict ideas about the sacred- 
ness of social obligations within the groups to 
which they belong. 1 would mention sheer fear 
of public opinion as one of the great weaknesses 
of the men. They would rather be in the fashion 
than be right. And most of them have been hard- 
ened — though not necessarily in a bad sense." 

As we ask ourselves what are the virtues which 
the majority admire in others and practice them- 
selves to a greater or lesser degree, we would say 
that they are chiefly five: 

1. Courage or bravery, the first virtue of the 
ancients and always at a natural premium in war 
time, is admired by all. In countless instances 
in the camps or ou the battlefield this rises to 
heroism or self-sacrifice. Cowardice is scathingly 
condemncnl, and the man who starts to run away 
on the battlefield is unhesitatingly shot down by 
his comrades to preserve the morale of the fight- 
ing body. 

2. Brothcrlincss, or comradeship, shows itself 
in unselfish service and coo])eration with others. 

3. Generosity and tender-heartedness show 
themselves in the men's willingness to help a 
comrade, to share their last rations, and to insist 



134 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

that others be attended to on the battlefield be- 
fore themselves when they lie wounded. These 
are among the most beautiful virtues which the 
war has revealed. 

4. Straightforwardness and genuine honesty 
are demanded; and all cant, hypocrisy, double 
dealing, shirking, and unreality are scathingly 
condemned. 

5. Persistent cheerfulness in the midst of mo- 
notony, drudgery, sufifering, danger, or death, is 
admired and maintained by the majority. This 
is not incompatible with the "grousing" or 
grumbling which the Englishman regards as his 
prerogative. This good cheer shows itself in the 
inveterate singing and whistling of the men on 
the march. 1 

Commenting upon the virtues of the soldiers, 
especially the wounded, a hospital nurse writes: 
"I was struck by the amount of real goodness 
among the men — their generosity, kindness, chiv- 
alry, patience, and self-sacrifice. The sins which 
they dislike are those sins of the spirit which 
Christ denounced most bitterly — hypocrisy, pride. 



'The songs of the men which are most popular in war time bear evi- 
dence of this unconscious virtue. They fall into three classes. There are 
the songs of cheer so popular in the camps today: "Pack Up Your Trou- 
bles in Your Own Kit Bag and Smile, Smile, Smile," "Are We Down- 
hearted, No," "Though Your Heart May Ache Awhile Never Mind," etc. 
Then there are the songs of home: "Keep the Home Fires Burning," 
"Tipperary," "Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty," "Put Me on the Train 
to London Town," "Back Home in Tennessee," "In My Old Kentucky 
Home," "There's a Long, Long Trail Awinding," "Give Me Your Smile," 
"If You Were the Only Girl in the World," "Mother McCrae," etc. Then 
there are the songs of nationality: The "Marseillaise," "John Brown's 
Body," "When Irish Eyes are Smiling," "Come Back to Erin," "Annie 
Laurie," etc. 



RELIGION AT THE FRONT 135 

meanness. They love giviiif?, they bear pMiii 
l)ationtly, they honor true womanhood, they 
reverence goodness." 

Probably no one in the present war has given 
a better (U'sci'ij)tion of the unconscious virtues 
of the soldiers than has Donald Hankey, in his 
chapter on "Th6 Religion of the Inarticulate," 
frngnionts of which we here quote: 

"We never got a chance to sit down and think 
things out. Praying was almost an impossibility. 
. . . Above all, we were not going to turn reli- 
gious at the last minute because we were afraid. 
. . . The soldier, and in this case the soldier 
means the workingman, does not in the least 
connect the things that he really believes in with 
Christianity. . . . Here were men who believed 
absolutely in the Christian virtues of unselfish- 
ness, generosity, charity, and humility, without 
ever connecting them in their minds with Christ ; 
and at the same time what they did associate 
with Christianity was just on a par with the 
formalism and smug self-righteousness which 
Christ spent His whole life in trying to destroy. 
. . . The men really had deep-seated beliefs in 
goodness. . . . They never connected the good- 
ness in which they believed with the God in Whom 
the chaplains said they ought to believe. . . . 
They have a dim sort of idea that He is misrepre- 
sented by Christianity. ... If the chaplain wants 
to be understood and to win their sympathy he 
must begin by showing them that Christianity 



136 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

is the explanation and the justification and the 
triumph of all that they do now really believe in. 
He must start by making their religion articulate 
in a way which they will recognize." 

As we turn from the virtues to the vices or 
moral weaknesses of the soldier in war time, we 
find that they also fall chiefly under five head- 
ings: 

1. Impurity must certainly take the first place. 
Investigation seemed to show that the majority 
of these men were immoral in peace time, but the 
war has intensified this evil. This would be ac- 
counted for to a large extent by the unnatural 
conditions under which the men are forced to live, 
and the policy of the military authorities, who 
are often concerned merely with the fighting fit- 
ness of the men, rather than with the moral 
issues. However this may be, in nearly every 
camp or battalion or regiment or body of men 
questioned, whether among officers or men, the 
majority were confessedly living in immorality. 
This in itself is a staggering fact. It could be 
supported here by numerous statements or au- 
thorities and by much evidence. 

2. Obscene and profane language is sweeping 
like an epidemic through the camps. It is infec- 
tious, and the worst men, who are the loudest 
talkers, tend to set the standard, so that evil is 
rapidly and unconsciously propagated until the 
very atmosphere becomes saturated. It is some 
comfort to know that frequently words are used 



RELIGION AT THE FRONT 137 

unthinkingly and without u lull i-calization of 
tbeir original meaning. It is also comforting to 
be assured that there is not much deliberate tell- 
ing of obseene stories. As one man puts it, 
"There are few essentially rotten minds." When, 
however, the name of our Lord is used not only 
profanely, but dragged into the most obscene and 
horrible connections, unheard of in peace times, 
no possible excuse can be offered and the habit 
cannot but prove deadening and baneful in its 
inllueuce. Men who never before thought of 
swearing find themselves driven to strong lan- 
guage and to reckless, heightened, or intensified 
expression in the trying and persistent strain of 
war time. 

3. Drunkenness has always proved the danger 
of the soldier. The discipline of the army has 
lessened this evil within the camps. Certainly it 
is being sternly suppressed and severely punished 
by the authorities among the newly arrived 
American troops. The rum which is given to the 
soldiers of the British army before a charge, or 
in the extreme cold of the trenches, has taught 
some men to drink who had not contracted the 
habit before. It is also a fact that the drink bill 
of England has increased during the war. Lloyd 
George said: ''We are fighting against Germany, 
Austria, and Drink; but the gi-eatest of these 
three deadly foes is Drink." The drink trade of 
England is maintaincfl on the one hand by the 
powerful vested interests and the respectable 



138 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

moderate drinkers at the top of society, who are 
not willing to sacrifice their selfish comfort for 
the weaker brother, and on the other hand by the 
demand of the laboring classes who will have 
their beer, and whom the government does not 
dare oppose in the present crisis. Drink has been 
a curse to Britain during the war. 

4. Oambling is a danger to the soldier. It is 
strictly forbidden in most of its forms by the mili- 
tary authorities. The game of "House" is toler- 
ated as a mild form of gambling, where the men 
play for hours for very small stakes in order to 
kill time. The game of "Crown and Anchor" is 
also popular. 

5. A lack of moral courage, of independence, 
and of individual initiative are particular evils 
of the present. All the men have to act together. 
They are taught to obey under rigid discipline. 
Individual initiative is crushed or left unde- 
veloped. The sense of personal responsibility and 
of personal ownership is often weakened. This 
lack of the sense of private property may partly 
account for the pilfering which goes on. The men 
find it exceedingly diflScult to take an open stand 
on moral or religious questions before their com- 
rades. A soldier will ordinarily hide his religion 
and is afraid to be seen praying or doing anything 
that makes him peculiar, although the most im- 
moral and obscene man is not ashamed of his 
actions. 

A lieutenant of the Royal Irish Rifles says: 



RELIGION AT THE FRONT 139 

"Taken singly they are afraid to face public 
opposition, anxious to avoid bother and exertion, 
slack, and easily overcome by tenij)tatioiis. There 
is a fairly general chaotic unrest, but little or no 
serious thought. There is a greater tolerance 
towards vice. Many more men practice sexual 
vice than before and most refuse to condemn it. 
It might be said that the men are more open to 
religion, but less religious. They are also more 
open on the question of sacrifice, the need for liv- 
ing or dying for others." 

An army chaplain who himself served in the 
ranks writes of the soldier : "He lives an animal 
life in which the thinking is done for him. In- 
deed his relative comfort dei)ends upon the extent 
to which he can abstain from thinking. In France 
the number who take drink increases greatly. It 
is wicked, damnably wicked that our lads through 
ignorance should be allowed to slip into sins 
which in themselves are deadly, but which also 
open the door to deadlier sins. . . . There are 
many indications that when the Army returns 
there will be a great social upheaval. Men feel 
that they are out to fight Prussianism, but they 
are becoming growingly conscious of Prussianism 
in our own national life. They are very conscious 
of it in military life." 

If we were to sum up our impressions we would 
be compelled to say that there has been an in- 
crease of immorality, drinking, and bad language 
during the period of the war. 



140 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

II 

Let us now ask, What is the attitude of the men 
to religion, and what are the characteristics of 
their religious life in war time? The war seems 
to have intensified all the tendencies of peace 
time. It makes a man a greater sinner or a 
greater saint. He is either driven to God or 
away from Him. It would be impossible for any 
single human mind adequately to sum up the 
good and evil of war, and strike a balance between 
the two. Most Christians cannot believe that war 
is in itself good. To those who have seen its 
hideous reality it is unquestionably a dire evil. 
Even the best results of war might have been 
better attained by other means. The good is 
often revealed rather than caused by it. A moral 
equivalent for war might have been found. Cer- 
tainly no Christian could defend war save as a 
last resort, forced upon a nation in defense of its 
life or for the lives of others, when all more ra- 
tional or judicial methods had failed. 

Among the obvious evil results of war we would 
be compelled to name at least ten : The wanton 
destruction of human life; the maiming and suf- 
fering inflicted upon the wounded; the breaking 
up of homes and the terrible suffering caused to 
women and children ; the loss of wealth and prop- 
erty, with the subsequent hardship for the poor 
which it entails, and the destruction of art, archi- 
tecture, and the higher material accomplishments 



RELIGION AT THE FRONT 141 

of civilization; tlie oulbreak of iiiimorality and 
(Irunkennoss, which nlwayss aci()iiipaiii<'s war; the 
hardening of the finer sen.sibililies of men 
through the cruelty and barbarity of modern war- 
fare; the increase of hatred and susi)icion; the 
dividing of humanity and the destruction of its 
sense of unity, brotherhood, and cooperation ; the 
break<lown of international law and respect for 
law and order; and the loss of reverence for 
human life and the sense of its priceless value. 

An equal nund)er of possible good ejects may 
be mentioned which war may at times call out: 
The development of courage and heroism ; the 
call to sacrifice in the sinking of selfish individual 
interests for the sake of a cause; the discipline 
of obedience and the development of corporate 
action ; the bringing of men out of selfish and 
careless lives to the facing of the great realities 
of God, life, death, and immortality; the awful 
object lesson of the results of sin, both personal 
and national, and the teaching of the terrible 
lesson that "the wages of sin is death" ; the widen- 
ing of men's horizons, the breaking of old molds, 
ruts, and restrictions and the opening of men's 
minds to new ideas; the chastening and mellow- 
ing influence of suffering, with its possible de- 
velopment of sympathy, tenderness, and unselfish- 
ness; the deepening of the sense of brotherhood 
within a single nation with the sinking of the 
false or artificial social distinctions of peace time; 
the strengthening of religious unity by the strip- 



U2 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

ping off of nonessentials and the laying bare of 
the great simple fundamentals; and the new con- 
tact with the practical ministry of religion in 
hours of deepest need in camps, in hospitals, and 
on the battlefields, with the resultant strengthen- 
ing hold on the great verities of the love of God, 
the cross of Christ, and the service of men. 

It will depend upon the individual and his 
theories of life how he will strike the balance 
between these two sides of the good and evil of 
war. While the good effects of a war are seen 
more clearly after it is over, certainly during the 
war the vast majority of men at the front would 
almost unanimously agree that the preponderat- 
ing influence and effect for the time being is evil. 

At the beginning of the war in 1914 there was 
talk of a religious revival in the various countries. 
The churches for a time were filled. The opening 
of the war drove men to God. With the passing 
months, which have now dragged into years, 
many of the high ideals have gradually been 
lowered or lost. Men are certainly ready to listen 
to a living message and are probably more open 
than ever before in their lives to religious influ- 
ences, because of their desperate need. They are 
between the nether and upper millstones of sin 
and death. On the one hand they meet the pres- 
sure of terrible temptations, and on the other 
they have to face the awful fact of death, unready 
and unprepared. But although the men are open 
to a religious message and to the Christian chal- 



RELIGION AT THE FRONT 143 

lenge presented by one who has a real message, 
it could hardly be iiiainljiined by anyone that 
there is a revival of religion at the front today. 
Rather the opposite is true. 

A friend of the present writer, a chaplain in 
charge of the religious work in one of the five 
armies at the front, well says: 

"On the whole, I venture to say, there is not a 
great revival of the Christian religion at the front. 
Deep in their hearts is a great trust and faith 
in (lod. It is an inarticulate faith expressed in 
deeds. The top levels, as it were, of their con- 
sciousness, are nnuh tilled with grumbling and 
foul language and i)hysical occupations; but be- 
neath lie deep spiritual springs, whence issue 
their cheerfulness, stubbornness, patience, gen- 
erosity, humility, and willingness to suffer and to 
die. There is religion about; only, very often it 
is not the Christian religion. Kather it is natural 
religion. It is the expression of a craving for 
security. Literally it is a looking for salvation." 

It may be asked, To what extent are the men 
thinking of religion and discussing its problems? 
One friend of the writer, a young Anglican chap- 
lain, says: "The men are not thinking at all. 
They are 'carrying on.' They spend hours in play- 
ing a game like House because it requires no 
thought." However, it would i)robably be fairer 
to say that at times all of them think about reli- 
gion, although they do not talk very much about 
it. It is not, however, consistent thought leading 
to action. Rather they have moments of deep 



144 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

impressions, vague longings, intuitions, and hun- 
ger of heart. But the minute anyone starts a 
discussion or begins to attack religion, men show 
that they have been thinking, or that they have 
ideas of their own in private. 

Most of them believe in God, although they do 
not know Him in a personal way. They believe 
in religion, but have not made it vital and domi- 
nant in their lives. They have a vague sense or 
intuition that there is a God and that He is a 
good God, round about and above them. He is 
looked upon, however, not as One whom they are 
to seek first, but rather as a last resort; not as 
a present Father and constant Friend, but as One 
to whom they can turn in time of need. They 
have a vague feeling of unworthiness, although 
no clear sense of sin. Yet they also have an in- 
articulate belief or intuition that they have tried, 
however brokenly or unsuccessfully, to live up 
to such light as they had or to some standard 
of their own. They feel that somehow, though 
they have often failed, at bottom they are not 
so very bad, and that God is very, very good. 
Their vague feeling would probably find its most 
accurate expression in Faber's hymn, "There's 
a wideness in God's mercy, like the wideness of 
the sea." 

They revere God from afar oflf and in one com- 
partment of their being, but they have never 
opened their lives to Him. They have a reverence 
for Him in the face of death, in the hour of 



RELIGION AT THE FRONT 145 

need, niul in the great crises of life. Most of 
tliem like 1<» siii^ the riii'lsliiui liynins dii Sun- 
day evening and have tlionglils of home and of 
loved ones that are sacre<l. They do not feel 
that they have come into close personal relations 
with God, but neither do they consciously feel 
that they are out of relation with Him. They 
do not think they are altogether right with Him, 
but neither do they feel in the bottom of their 
hearts that they are wholly wrong with Him. 
The vast majority of them in the hour of death 
do not feel that they have either consciously 
accepted or rejected Him. They have not loved 
darkness rather than light, nor have they wholly 
chosen the light and rejected the darkness. 

It will depend upon the individual how he 
classifies these men. Some will believe that the 
great love of the Good Shepherd, who laid down 
His life for the sheep, will somehow in the end 
not be thwarted in His seeking to save the lost. 
Not only will men differ in their judgment, but 
it is exceedingly difficult to pass judgment upon 
an individual soldier. He seems to be a dififetent 
man under different circumstances. In the 
temptations at the base camp, he would perhaps 
appear to be utterly irreligious and profane. He 
can hardly be recognized as the same man as he 
prays in the hour of battle, or as he lies wounded, 
chastened, and sobered, in the hospital. Which 
situation reveals the true man? 

Before us as we write lies the photograph of a 



146 WITH OUK SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

young sergeant. Before the war he was an 
atheist, an illegitimate child, a member of the 
criminal class. But in the trenches he found God. 
Blown up by a mine, for sixteen days he lost the 
power of speech and of memory. He returned 
from the front with a deep sense of God, but with 
no personal, vital relationship to Christ. He 
eagerly welcomed the first real message that went 
straight to his heart, and the personal word of 
loving sympathy which led him to relate his deep 
experience of the trenches to the presence of 
the living Christ. All this man needed was some- 
one to interpret to him his own experience, and 
bring him into the relationship with God which 
his own heart craved and longed for. 

Beside this photograph is the card of a strong- 
willed, self-righteous young Pharisee, who had 
no use for religion in peace time, but who was 
driven to God by his awful conflict with sin in 
this war. Next comes the card of a young man 
who formerly had lived a proper conventional 
life without bad habits. The war taught him to 
drink and he finally became a drunkard, but in 
his extremity he found Christ as a personal 
Saviour. Next comes the card of a man who had 
been in a public house for thirty-two years — 
twenty-seven years as a bar tender and five years 
as a saloon keeper. He said, "I have sent men 
to hell with drink. I have seen women who 
would sell the clothes ofif the backs of their chil- 
dren or pawn their husband's clothing to get 



RELIGION AT THE FRONT 147 

drink," Yet this man has been brought to God 
durinf? the war. Many a man has found God oti 
llie lield of battle, or like the thief has turned 
to him in the hour of death.^ 

One young soldier thus describes his experience 
which is typical of many another: There had been 
a charge, a hopeless affair from the start. He 
lay in the long grass between the lines, unable 
to move, and with an unceasing throbbing pain 
in his left leg and arm. A whizz-bang had caught 
him in both places. He just lay there, feeling 
strangely peaceful. Above him he could see the 
stars. All this bloodshed — what was the good 
of it? He suddenly felt terribly small and lonely, 
and he was so very, very weak. "God!" he whis- 
pered softly. "God everywhere!" Then into his 
tired brain came a new phrase — "Underneath are 
the everlasting arms." He sighed contentedly, as 
a tired child. They fetched him in at last. He 
will never again be sound of limb ; but there is 
in his memory and in his heart that which may 
make him a staunch fighter in other fields. He 
has learned a new way of prayer, and the courage 
that is born of faith well-founded. 

The idea has been widely preached by many 
British chaplains that <leath in battle saves. This 
may be good Mohaniniedanism, but it is surely not 
the Christian message that is given to Christ's 
ministers to preach. The verse most often quoted 



'S«c Appendix III for a typical exprcflsion of a soldier's new experi- 
ence of religion at the front. 



148 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

in support of this theory is : "Greater love hath no 
man than this, that a man lay down his life for 
his friends." But such a passage cannot be taken 
out of its context either in Christ's teaching or 
in the man's own life. Our Lord had said that 
we were to love even as He loved, that is, out of 
a pure and surrendered heart to lay down our 
life for our friends; and He added, "Ye are my 
friends if ye do the things which I command 
you." It is going far beyond the province of 
the Christian minister to offer any hope other 
than that which is offered by our Lord Himself. 
It is not death or a bullet or battle that saves. 
Christ only saves, and there is no other name 
given under heaven. This offer is made to all 
men and at all times. 

But although one may not preach so dangerous 
and misleading a doctrine, it is nevertheless pos- 
sible to realize that many a man is unconsciously 
more of a Christian than he knows, and that in 
the last day he may say with surprise: "When 
saw I Thee an hungered and fed Thee?" 

We may turn to "A Student in Arms" for his 
interpretation of the feeling of the common sol- 
dier in this crisis: 

"Then at last we 'got out.' We were confronted 
with dearth, danger, and death. . . . They, who 
had formerly been our despair, were now our 
glory. Their spirits effervesced. Their wit 
sparkled. Hunger and thirst could not depress 
them. Rain could not damp them. Cold could 
not chill them. Every hardship became a joke. 



RELIGION AT THE FRONT 149 

. . . Never was such a ti'iinnpli of sjjirit over 
matter. ... If it was anotlicr fellow that was 
hit, it was an occasion for tendcnicss and grief. 
But if one of them was hit, O Death, where is thy 
sting? O Grave, where is thy victory? . . .Life? 
They did not value life! They had never been 
able to make jnuch of a list of it. But if they lived 
amiss they <licd gloriously, with a smile for the 
pain and the <lread of it. What else had they 
been born for? It was their chance. With a 
gay heart they gave their greatest gift, and with 
a smile to think that after all they had anything 
to give which was of value. One by one Death 
challenged them. One by one they smiled in his 
grim visage, and refused to be dismayed. They 
had been lost, but they had found the path that 
led them home; and when at last they laid their 
lives at the feet of the Good Shepherd, what could 
they do but smile?" 

It has been well said that there is much natural 
religion in the trenches, but that much of this 
religion is not Christian. What is the attitude 
of the men to Christ Himself? Most of them 
associate Him with all that is highest and noblest 
in life. They link Him with God in their thought, 
and with themselves in their time of deepest need. 
Although His name with that of God is sometimes 
taken on their lips in profanity, there is often a 
deep reverence for Him. Thousands have seen 
the cross of Christ standing among the ruins in 
the villages of Belgium and Northern France, 
when all about seems to be battered and wrecked. 
The old skeptical theories and captious criticisms 



150 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

of pre-war days are little heard during this awful 
time. Generally speaking, the facts of the gospel 
narrative are not disputed. They believe in 
Christ as the revelation of God. They have no 
difficulty with the doctrine of the divinity of 
Christ and do not doubt that He is a living reality 
and has power to save. Their only difficulty is 
with their own sin. They do not know how to 
break from it or are unwilling to give it up. 

The great need of the hour is for interpretation. 
On the one hand, men have had in their hours of 
great need a deep experience of God which they 
do not understand; yet on the other hand, they 
are gripped by the power of temptation which 
alone they cannot overcome. They admire the 
virtues of courage, generosity, and purity, but for 
the most part they see no connection between 
these and the presentation of Christ in the lives 
and words of those about them who profess to 
be Christians. What is needed is personally to 
relate the man to the God and Father of Jesus 
Christ, with Whom he has been brought face to 
face at the battle front. There is urgent and 
imperative need of the giving of that message, 
both in public presentation and in the channels 
of personal friendship. 

One chaplain says of the men: "I am sure the 
soldier has got religion : I am sure he has got 
Christianity; but he does not know he has got 
Christianity. I am convinced that of the hun- 
dreds of men who go into action the majority 



RELIGION AT THE FRONT 151 

come out affected towards jijood rather tliaii 
coarsened. They come out reali/.inj; that there 
are times when they cannot get on witliout God; 
they are not frightened of Him, they flee to Him 
with their simple cries for strength." 

While another, a student who laid down his 
life at the front, makes this valuable suggestion 
as to the presentation of Christ : *'VVhen I was 
talking to them at these .services, I always used 
to try to make them feel that Christ was the 
fulfilment of all the best things that they ad- 
mired, that He was their natural hero. I would 
tell them some story of heroism and meanness 
contrasted, of courage and cowardice, of noble 
forgiveness and vile cruelty, and so get them on 
the side of the angels. Then I would try and 
spring it upon them that Christ was the Lord of 
the heroes and the brave men and the noble men, 
and that He was lighting against all that was 
mean and cruel and cowardly, and that it was 
up to them to take their stand by His side if they 
wanted to make the world a little better instead 
of a little worse." 

Ill 

The third question discussed with the men was, 
What is the attitude of the soldier to the ehurehcs, 
and what lesson has the Church to learn from the 
present irarf Let it be said at the very outset 
that the writer speaks as a member of the Church 
and in deep sympathy with it. As the divinely 



152 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

constituted organization which stands for the 
highest human ideals, and for the establishment 
of the Kingdom of God on earth, we all are, or 
ought to be, members of the Church. "With 
charity for all and with malice toward none," 
we see no ground for self-complacence on the part 
of any branch of the Church, and no part of it 
which deserves sweeping condemnation from the 
rest. Doubtless it will seem to many that it is 
unwise to confess our faults, but the men at the 
front are not silent, however much we may de- 
sire to be. We would do well to face the facts 
which this war is forcing upon our attention, 
however much we may dislike the searching glare 
of the present conflict. Obviously something is 
wrong. Had the Church fulfilled her divine mis- 
sion, the present war between so-called "Chris- 
tian" nations would have been impossible. 

As was stated in the preceding chapter, accord- 
ing to the opinion of the majority, less than 20 
per cent or one-fifth of the men are vitally related 
to any of the Christian communions. A series of 
conferences held with individuals and carefully 
selected groups of men and officers brought out 
by a general consensus of opinion the following 
points as representing the attitude of the men 
toward the churches: 

1. Indifference to the Church. As one typical 
young sergeant, a member of the student move- 
ment, puts it : "The men simply have no time for 
it. They do not care for the Church because it 



RELrOION AT TIIF. FKOXT 15.'} 

did not care for them." There is a general feeling 
that the churches do not understand them or 
sympathize with the social and industrial dis- 
abilities of the men. They feel that (he i<leals 
of life for which the Church stands are dull, dim, 
and altogether unnatural ; its standard of comfort 
and complacent respectability makes no appeal to 
them and they have no part or lot in it. They 
feel that this respectability of the Church is quite 
in keeping with llagrant selfishness in social and 
industrial relationships, that the Church is largely 
in tlie possession of the privileged classes, who 
monopolize it, and who have neither sought nor 
welcomed them within its doors. 

As one representative chaplain in a most in- 
fluential position in France says: ''There is the 
plain fact that the great mass of men are out 
with the Christian Church, and do not look to it 
as being in any vital relation to life as they know 
it, either in peace or war. There is the deeper 
and sadder fact that to a very large proportion 
of them God Himself means little or nothing, or 
means something that is very unchristian. Where 
there is a living presentation of religion men are 
responsive — extraordinarily so. Put it how you 
will, men must be summoned to a new thought, 
a new outlook on life, a new attitude towards the 
unseen and eternal." 

2. An attitude of separation and alienation 
from the Church. For the most part the men 
are largelv ignorant of what the Church reallv 



154 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

is, and for this the churches are largely responsi- 
ble. They believe that its message and presenta- 
tion of truth are often too feminine and imprac- 
tical and that its fellowship is too cold and ex- 
clusive. They do not understand the vocabulary 
and tone adopted frequently by preachers in 
speaking of religious things, and they feel that 
the churches are almost complete strangers to the 
real facts of life with which they have to deal. 

It is true that the practical work of the churches 
in their helpful ministry through the various 
organizations working in the camps has brought 
many of the men into vital contact with religion 
for the first time. But the war has revealed the 
lack of the churches' hold upon the men in pre- 
war times. 

3. Criticism of its worldUness. The men have 
an unuttered belief in God, and they reverence 
Jesus Christ as the friend and brother and com- 
rade of man, as the embodiment of the highest 
ideal they can conceive. But they feel that some- 
how the churches do not adequately represent 
Christ, that they have become merely the adjunct 
of the State to second its schemes and aims. Many 
feel that the Church has lowered its colors in the 
present war, that in some countries it has been 
little more than a recruiting station for enlist- 
ment and that its message cannot be reconciled 
with the Sermon on the Mount. 

One sergeant thus states his convictions: "Per- 
haps it would be well if we out here could get up 



RELIGION AT THE FRONT 155 

a committee of inquiry on 'Civilians and Religion' 
and arrive at some decision as to what is the 
matter with you at home. Are we to return home 
where the spiritual fires have been kept burning 
brightly, or to the blackened ashes of those great 
ideals of the early days of August, 1914, which 
have burned themselves out? Are we to return 
to a country in which, in spite of all the com- 
munity of suffering and sorrow, the Christian 
churches have still their differences simmering 
instead of being regiments in one common Army?" 

Another soldier writes : ''What could not the 
churches do for the world if they could only con- 
nect the symbols Christ gave us with the knowl- 
edge that is within the hearts of men? There 
must be more known about suffering and sacrifice 
now in the hearts of men than at any past time. 
I thought once, on the Somme, that the two races 
facing each other in such agony were as the two 
thieves on their crosses reviling each other, and 
that somewhere between us, if we could but see 
Him, was Christ on His Cross." 

4. The men are bewildered and repelled iy the 
Churclis divisions. There is a widespread feeling 
among them that there is something wrong here, 
that instead of representing Christ or losing them- 
selves in the wide interests of His Kingdom, in- 
stead of concern for the winning of the world and 
humanity as a whole, the aims of many of the 
churches are petty, narrow, exclusive, and sec- 
tarian. There is a feeling among the men that 



156 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

far too many Christians are working for them- 
selves or for their own particular branch of the 
Church, or are, as one of them puts it, "out for 
their own show." 

In the last hospital we visited, the young Amer- 
ican Episcopal chaplain working with one of our 
own units asked the writer to accompany him one 
morning to help him in cheering up the patients, 
giving them Testaments, meeting their needs, and 
answering their doubts and difficulties. While 
we were proceeding through one of the wards, 
the Nonconformist chaplain came by. The writer 
was speaking to a poor boy who was dying. The 
chaplain seemed shocked and surprised that we 
were speaking to one of his patients without his 
permission. The young Episcopal chaplain ex- 
plained that he felt sure that the chaplain would 
not mind if we tried to help the men. Although 
he followed him out of the ward and tried his 
best to make his peace with him, the chaplain 
reported the matter, and we were prevented from 
doing personal Christian work in neighboring hos- 
pitals. 

The Roman Catholic chaplain in the next hos- 
pital, a most consecrated and earnest man, has 
managed to get a military rule passed that no 
services can be held in any ward of the hospital 
unless every Roman Catholic patient is bodily 
carried out. This has successfully prevented the 
holding of any Christian services whatsoever. 
Catholic or Protestant. Throughout the entire 



RELIGION AT THE FRONT 157 

war we have never known of a single instance 
of any man trving to proselytize or to divert a 
soldier from ;ill('}i;ianfe to his own church. We 
have known of men leaving the churches altogether 
during the war, hut not one instance of a man's 
changing his church or heing asked to do so. Yet 
the jealousy and suspicion of the bare possibility 
of men's doing so has blocked and excluded much 
genuine Christian work. 

To give another instance — a personal friend of 
the writer, a young Anglican clergyman, a widely 
known college principal, was serving in one of 
the huts of a Convalescent Camp. He had made 
the acquaintance of the patients in some twelve 
wards and was going the rounds every morning 
telling the war news, giving oranges to the 
fevered, and cheering up the depressed. The 
ConiuKUulant came with apologies and told him 
that although he was doing the best Christian 
work in the hospital it must be discontinued, as 
the chaplain objected. Our friend, who was a 
clergj'man of the same communion as the chap- 
lain, called upon him and asked if he had any 
objection to the distribution of fruit. He replied 
that if our friend did this it would give an unfair 
advantage to his work as his particular organi- 
zation would get the credit, and that he, as the 
chaplain, must "push his own show.'' To con- 
tinue in the words of our friend : ''Then T asked 
him if I could send the fruit through the lady 
workers or the hut orderlies, or the 'Tommies' 



158 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

who were friends of the wounded. But he refused 
all. So I asked him if he would distribute them 
if I gave them. This he agreed to, and I have sent 
them to him since then. But he is too busy." 
The oranges were not distributed, and our friend 
concludes: "I am out against the whole principle 
on which he acts. I don't think he is much to 
be blamed. He is one of the best; a keen, hard- 
working, pleasant man, zealous for his 'own show,' 
and in its interests doing much for the men. 
And in his principle of action he is not an excep- 
tion, but a common type of the Anglican padre 
as I have met them in many lands. They are 
trained and encouraged to 'push their own show.' 
But this keenness on one's 'own show' rather than 
on men, is the very essence of the sin of schism, 
and the very root of Pharisaism. Now, as a rule, 
all the sects stand for their 'own show' first, and 
men know it. I am ashamed to be a parson today. 
Men were not made for any Church, but the 
Church for them." Here again, which of us is 
without sin, and who can throw the first stone 
at his brother, or at other branches of the sadly 
divided Church of Christ? 

Facing the vast common need in war time with 
four thousand wounded patients, whom no one 
chaplain could visit, the whole story is obviously 
pathetic and sad. The writer also recalls visiting 
a Y M C A hut of another nationality, where the 
secretary was so obviously "out for his own show," 
and had become so engrossed in the counter of 



RELIGION AT THE FRONT 159 

his dry canteen and his work as a money-changer, 
that he had forgotten all the higher interests of 
the men, and the high purpose for which he was 
there. He had become a mere secularized ma- 
chine, a kind of automatic cash register, mis- 
taking in his work tiie means for the end. He 
was just as much "out for his own show" as the 
three mentioned above, and it was an infinitely 
smaller "show." 

Here we have four instances of men, each con- 
scientious, well meaning, and earnest; each zeal- 
ous for his own work and his own organization; 
yet each earning the pity or contempt of the 
great body of men outside the churches today who 
are out of sympathy with sectarian zeal. The 
saddest religious spectacle the writer ever wit- 
nessed was in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre 
in Jerusalem, where five chapels divide that sacred 
spot where our Lord is supposed to have been 
crucifietl, occupied by five bodies, each claim- 
ing to be the church. The blood of their fellow 
Christians has been shed by the followers of these 
churches on this very spot, and it is a humiliating 
sight to see them kept apart even to this day by 
the Turkish bayonet alone. How many of us are 
working for "our own show," rather than for the 
Kingdom of God? 

The war work of the Y M C A in America, in 
England, in France, and elsewhere has been made 
IK)ssil)le only by churchmen sacriticing their in- 
dividual interests and losing themselves in service 



160 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

for the Kingdom. The Association represents the 
churches at work on behalf of the suffering men 
in the war zone. If it should claim the credit for 
itself as though it were a wholly independent or- 
ganization, rather than the united work of the 
churches which have sunk their own differences to 
make possible this common work, this would be 
only a manifestation of the same spirit and more 
inexcusable. But such a claim it could never 
truly make. As a matter of fact, this united work 
has proved how truly Christians of various bodies 
can get together on a great practical issue. If, 
as at present, all can unite in a great lay organi- 
zation, what may not the churches themselves do 
in the future? 

Should we not in this war repent, in bitterness 
and deep humiliation, for our unhappj^ divisions 
and each resolve that he will work for nothing less 
than the whole Kjngdom of God, and that no mem- 
ber of that Kingdom, even one of these least, shall 
be excluded from the love and fellowship which 
make us one in Him? One of the chaplains in 
France who has himself been in the ranks says: 
"I feel that in the past churches have been more 
anxious to get men into the Kingdom of the 
Church than into the Kingdom of God, with the 
result that very many are Pillars of the Church 
who are not near to the Kingdom. Out of the 
two battalions which I have known as a private 
soldier, I should say that not more than five per 
cent were vitally related to any of the Christian 



RELIGION AT THE FRONT 101 

communions. It is useless making plans for the 
time when the boys come home, unless the (Miurcli 
rediscovers her Lord and Master. The Spirit 
filled Church is more necessary than any modifica- 
tions of or<;ani/ation." 

Is not the whole war a call to deep humiliation 
to the Church of Christ and should we not all 
stand convicted of sin before it? So far as our 
saving the world is concerned and our bringing 
in the Kingdom of love and peace, which Christ 
came to establish, does not the war write in 
flaming judgment against us, "Thou art weighed 
in the balances and found wanting"? Are we not 
all, like the Pharisees of old, too ready to throw 
the first stone at someone else who we may think 
caused the war, instead of admitting our own 
guilt? 

As Arnold Freeman, in his lectures at Sheffield 
University, says: 

"We persuade one another that it was the 
Kaiser, through his lust for self-glorification, who 
made this war. Would it be possible for one man 
to transform all Europe into a slaughter-house 
unless that same Kaiser-spirit found its res{)onse 
in human nature in every corner of this conti- 
nent? It is the 'Kaiser' in each one of us that 
makes wars possible. It is because we have in 
every nation, and in every class, multitudes of 
men and women who neglect the service of their 
fellow-creatures in a desire for self-indulgence 
and self-aggrandizement, that this catastrophe 
has fallen upon us all. It is a case of <levil-pos- 
session, and our only hope is to exorcise ourselves 



162 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

of the evil spirit. Our avowed intention is to cast 
out 'Kaiserism' in Germany by brute force. We 
must be no less resolute to cast it out of this 
country." 

The Bishop of Carlisle has well said that if we 
were really Christians this war would not have 
happened. If the defense of its citizens is the 
work of the State, and the redemption of the 
world is the task of the Church, no one can deny 
that the State has done its work far better than 
the Church. In the face of this, the most pathetic 
spectacle that the Christian world ever witnessed, 
must we not wring our hands with shame and cry, 
"Why could we not cast it out?" The divisions, 
the impotence, the worldliness, the coldness, the 
sin and failure of the Church stand revealed in 
the lurid light of this war. 

What a self-righteous spirit the war has bred 
in many of us, and what a hatred of our enemies ! 
One has but to read the secular and religious 
press on both sides of the present conflict to see 
our sin writ large before us. Since we have such 
a keen vision for the mote in our brother's eye and 
such an eager perception of every flaw in our 
enemy, we can recognize this spirit most readily 
if we look for it first in Germany, but in doing 
so let us clearly recognize that every quotation 
can be paralleled by the press both secular and 
religious on our own side of the conflict. In all 
fairness let us state that a large proportion of 
the sermons which have been preached in the 



RELIGION AT THE FRONT 16^ 

churches of Oermany, England, and America have 
had a recognition of the sins of their own people. 
But there have been many jtreachers on both 
sides who have praised their own nation to the 
skies with IMiarisaic self-righteousness, and have 
seen the enemy only with the distorted eyes of 
prejudice and hate. 

It will not be necessary to quote here the 
notorious "Hymn of Hate," by Ernst LisKauer, 
which was distributed by the Crown Prince of 
Bavaria to his army. Rather let us quote from 
some of the sermons and poems of German pastors 
and the religious press. In a collection of poems 
published by a German pastor, Konsistorialrat 
Dietrich Vorwerk, there occurred the following 
paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer: "Though the 
warrior's bread be scanty, do Thou work daily 
death and tenfold woe unto the enemy. Forgive 
in merciful long-suffering each bullet and each 
blow which misses its mark ! Lead us not into the 
temptation of letting our wrath be too tame in 
carrying out Thy divine judgment! Deliver us 
and our Ally from the infernal Enemy and his 
servants on earth. Thine is the kingdom, the 
German land; may we, by aid of Thy steel-clad 
hand, achieve the j)ower and the glory." For- 
tunately, this was deleted in the later editions of 
this book. 

The published sermons of Pastor H. Francke 
are also typical : 

"As Jesus was treated, so iilso have the German 



164 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

people been treated. From the East the Russian 
threatens us. Injustice and bloody deeds of vio- 
lence are his life-element, agreements and consti- 
tutions, solemnly sworn to, have no significance 
for him ; he is stained with blood from top to toe. 
Germany is precisely — who would venture to deny 
it? — the representative of the highest morality, 
of the purest humanity, of the most chastened 
Christianity. They envy us our freedom, our 
power to do our work in peace. To heal the world 
by the German nature is to become a blessing to 
the people of the earth. Wherever the German 
spirit obtains supremacy, there freedom prevails. 
Here we come upon the old intimate kinship be- 
tween the essence of Christianity and of Ger- 
manism. Because of their close spiritual relation- 
ship, therefore, Christianity must find its fairest 
flower in the German mind. Therefore we have a 
right to say : 'Our German Christianity — the most 
perfect, the most pure.' Thus the Germans are the 
very nearest to the Lord. Is He the God of those 
others? No, they serve at best Satan, the father 
of lies." 

The Rev. J. Rump writes in the same strain : 

"Against us stands the world's greatest sham 
of a nation, the 'English cousin,' the Judas among 
the nations, who betrays Germanism for thirty 
pieces of silver. Against us stands sensual 
France, the harlot amongst the peoples. Against 
us stands Russia, inwardly rotten, mouldering, 
masking its disease under outbursts of brutality. 
Germany shall be the Israel of the future. The 
Germans are guiltless, and from all sides testi- 
monies are flowing in as to the noble manner in 
which our troops conduct the war. We fight — 
thanks and praise be to God — for the cause of 



RELIGION AT THE FRONT lOr, 

Jesus within mankind. Verily tlie Bible is our 
book. It was jj^ivcn and assij^ned to us, which 
proclaims to mankind salvation or disaster — ac- 
cordinj:; as we will it.''^ 

Suili ([notations could bo multiplied not only 
from Gorman war sermons, but from some that 
have been preached in England and America as 
well."* The Archbishop of Cantorbuiy says: "I get 
letters in which 1 am urged to see to it that we 
insist upon 'reprisals, swift, bloody and unrelent- 
ing. Let gutters run with German blood. Let us 
smash to pulp the German old men, women and 
children,' and so on."^ 

Here is Henri de Regnier's song of hate from 
France: 

"I swear to cherish in my heart this hate 
Till my last heart-throb wanes; 
So may the sacred venom of my blood 
Mingle and charge my veins! 

May there pass never from my darkened brow 

The fuT'i'ows hate has worn! 
May tlioy plough deeper in my flesh, to mark 
The outrage I have borne! 

By towns in flames, by my fair fields laid waste, 

By hostages undone. 
By cries of niunlorod women aiul of babes, 

Bv each dead warrior son, . . . 



•Quoted in "Hurrah and Hallelujah," pp. llG-119. 

* It is interestinK tn note in this connection some words o{ Immanuel 
Kant. Sec Appendix I. 

* London Timta. June 22. 1917. 



166 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

I take my oath of hatred and of wrath 

Before God, and before 
The holy waters of the Marne and Aisne, 

Still ruddy with French gore ; 

And fix my eyes upon immortal Rheims, 

Burning from nave to porch, 
Lest I forget, lest I forget who lit 

The sacrilegious torch!" 

A poem recently written by an "Unbeliever" 
represents all the churches. Catholic and Protes- 
tant, Lutheran and Reformed, of the enemy and 
of the Allies, at last united in one message, which 
furnishes the recurring refrain of the poem, "In 
Jesus' Name go forth and slay." 

With two-thirds of the world, representing more 
than twenty nations, already dragged into the 
widening vortex of the present war; with more 
than five millions of the finest youth of Europe 
already slaughtered on the battlefield, with 
twenty millions who have already been wounded, 
nearly forty millions under arms, and whole 
nations organized for war and the manufacture 
of munitions ; with the flood tide of impurity and 
immorality which war has brought in its train; 
with the barbarism and cruelty, poison gas, flam- 
ing oil, and organized destruction used at present 
on the battlefields of Europe, is it not time for 
the Church to set her own house in order, to 
humble herself with shame in the very dust for 
her criminal impotence and worldliness and sin, 
and to return to her crucified Lord and Master? 



RELIGION AT THE FRONT 107 

Is it not time that we seek a new vision of His 
face, to renew our consecration before Him, and 
to seek a vital and life-giving message first for 
ourselves and then for the world about us? Not 
for "our country right or wrong," not for a 
Pharisaic self-righteousness, but for (Jhrist and 
His sutl'eriug world, for a whole Kingdom, and 
a whole Church, must we reconsecrate ourselves. 

As Fosdick says, ''The issue was drawn : Chris- 
tianity icould be a failure if it did not stop 
idavcry. And from the day that this issue was 
drawn, the result was assured. It was not Chris- 
tianity that failed, it was slavery. . . . This, too, 
is a climactic day in history. For so long time 
the Gospel and war have lived together in ignoble 
amity! If at last disharmony between the spirit 
of Jesus and the spirit of war is becoming evident, 
then a great hope has dawned for the race. . . . 
The main is.sue is clear. Christianity will indeed 
have failed if it does not stop icar."^ 

Is it not time that we turn to God in humilia- 
tion and praj-er for an outpouring of His spirit 
and a deeply needed revival of religion? In the 
words of A<lmiral Sir David Beatty, the Com- 
mander of the British Fleet, "England still re- 
mains to be taken out of her stupor of self-satis- 
faction and comj)lacency and until she be stirred 
out of this condition, until religious revival takes 
place at home, just so long will the war continue." 

If at the call of nationalism the manhood of 



* "The Challenge of the Prcaent Crbds," Aaaodation Preas. 



168 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

the nation has poured forth in boundless heroism 
and self-sacrifice, at the call of Christ cannot His 
Church rise again to its high vocation? If half 
of the zeal and passion, half of the outpouring 
of life and treasure, of organization and efficiency, 
that the State has put into this war could be 
thrown into the cause of the Kingdom and of 
the eternal verities, the world would soon be won. 
If Christians would but follow Christ, war, as 
an unbelievably brutal and barbarous anachron- 
ism, like its former savage contemporaries of 
slavery, the burning of witches, and the torture 
of the Inquisition, would be forever done away. 
The message with which our Lord challenges the 
whole Church today is that with which He began 
His ministry when He faced His apostate nation, 
"Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand." 



THE WORLD AT WAR 



CHAPTER VIII 
THE WORLD AT WAR 

Let us try to grasp the colossal facts of the 
present war. Since the beginning of the conflict 
there has been a daily attrition of more thaii 
25,000 in killed, wounded, or prisoners every 
twenty-four hours. At the opening of the fourth 
year of the war the number killed was over 
5,000,000. This does not include those who have 
perished in the devastated nations. Not less than 
6,000,000 men are now in the military prisons of 
Europe, some of whom have undergone great 
suffering, both physical and mental. More than 
5,000,000 lie wounded today in the militar}- hos- 
pitals, not to speak of several times that number 
who have been patched up and sent back into 
the line to face death again, or have been rejected 
as unfit for further service, often left crippled or 
mainie<l, blinded, or deformed for life. 

Mere numbers or statistics cannot measure the 
sacrifice and suffering of these lives. If we could 
know the infinite value of the unit of personality, 
or compute the preciousness and poteutialitj' of 
a single life destroyed, we might then hope to 
multiply it by the million. If human scales could 
weigh the sorrow of a widow's heart, could com- 
pute the anguish of a mother's loss, could 
171 



172 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

prophesy the deprivation of an orphan's lot, or 
know the good which might have been done by 
even one man who has now been killed, we would 
then be in a position to begin to estimate the 
casualty list. 

There are today nearly 40,000,000 men with 
the colors. If we add to these the 5,000,000 
already killed, the 6,000,000 prisoners and the 
large number discharged as unfit for further serv- 
ice, we have a total of far more than 50,000,000 
who have been with the colors in the first three 
years of the war. We can better realize the sig- 
nificance of this statement if we remember that 
in no previous war have more than 3,000,000 men 
faced each other in conflict. According to Gibbon, 
Rome's great standing army was not over 400,000 
men. Napoleon's grand army did not exceed 
700,000, and in the Battle of Waterloo less than 
200,000 men were engaged. In the American 
Civil War less than 3,000,000, and in the Russo- 
Japanese War only 2,500,000 men were employed. 
Indeed, if we sum up the twenty greatest wars 
of the last one hundred and twenty-five years, 
from the Napoleonic Wars to the present time, 
less than 20,000,000 men were engaged, while in 
this war nearly twice that number are now under 
arms. Britain alone has enrolled over 5,000,000 
for the army, with 1,000,000 more from the over- 
seas dominions, and about 500,000 for the navy. 
Germany has called some 12,000,000 and Russia 
more than 12,000,000 to the colors. 



THE WORLD AT WAR 173 

By the end of 1917 nearly (;,f)()(),()00 men will 
have been killed. Less tlian 5,500,000 were killed 
in the twenty greatest wars of the last century 
and a quarter, all combined. In the Battle of 
Gettysburg only 3,000 were killed. England's 
casualty list during a vigorous offensive averages 
over 3,000 every day. In the first ten days alone 
of the battle of the Somme, the British lost 200,- 
000 in killed or wounded. France as a whole 
has lost even more heavily, while Germany's 
casualty list during the great battles of the 
Somme and in Flanders has averaged 200,000 a 
month. When our own relatives are at the front, 
and our own boys are in the line, we realize what 
these statistics mean. In Germany alone the 
number of men killed now totals far over 1,000,- 
000. Think of the many millions of mothers and 
wives in the nations of Europe scanning that 
crowded page of the newspaper, with several thou- 
sand names on the casualty list every day, each 
looking to see if her boy's name is there. 

During that fateful day of July 1st when the 
great drive on the Somme began, when the Eng- 
lish along a front of twenty-five miles and the 
French on a front of ten miles leaped out of the 
trenches and sprang forward in that terrible 
charge, men were mowed down like ripened grain. 
Regiments on both sides were cut to pieces. The 
writer's brother-in-law, a young colonel, went in 
with 1,100 men of his battalion — only 130 came 
out. Only one oflBcer was unscathed and he has 



174 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

since been killed. The young colonel was shot 
within an inch of the heart and fell into a shell- 
hole. Two of his men fell dead on top of him. 
There he lay under a terrible fire for sixteen 
hours, and finally at midnight gained strength 
to struggle from under the two bodies that lay 
upon him, and crawled on his hands and knees 
for over a mile back to the nearest dressing sta- 
tion. In the first year of the war he lost nearly 
half his men with trench foot, the men's feet being 
frost-bitten or frozen in the muddy trenches. In 
the second year he was wounded in seven places 
by shrapnel, and later, after recovery, was almost 
killed. He has now again returned to the service. 

Another red-cheeked boy told the writer that 
his battalion had gone in with 960 men and had 
come out with only eighty. In another battalion 
all the oflScers were killed or wounded and the 
remaining handful was left with a lance-corporal 
in command: the colonel, the majors, captains, 
lieutenants, sergeants, and corporals had all been 
killed or wounded. At Bradford the writer was 
told that their favorite sons in the "Bradford 
Pals" had to be sacrificed, and every man that 
went into action in this battalion was either 
killed or wounded within a few hours. An un- 
usual proportion of British officers have fallen. 
The university students and the flower of the land 
who have gone into the officers' training corps 
have oftentimes been among the first to fall. 

Let us now turn from the numbers of killed, 



THE WORLD AT WAR 17.- 

wounded, and prisoners aud estimate if we can 
the cost of the conflict. The present war, more 
than any in previous history, has been a warfare 
of attrition, that is, by the killing and maiming 
of men and the destruction of resources to at- 
tempt to wear out the enemy. 

Already the cost of the war has mounted to 
over $130,000,000 a day, or more than |100,000 
every minute of the twelve hours that the sun 
shines upon us. Contrast, for instance, the total 
cost, the lives lost, and the numbers of men called 
to the colors in the twenty principal wars during 
the last century and a quarter, from the Napole- 
onic Wars of 170:^, with the figures for the pres- 
ent war to August 4, 1917, at the end of the third 
year of the conflict.^ 

Twenty previous wars Present War 

Total cost 126,123.546,240 ?75,000,000,000 

Total killed 5,498,097 5,000,000 

Called to the colors 18,552,200 40,000,000 

We have said that the cost of the war has now 
risen to the almost unbelievable total of over 
$180,000,000 a day.^ That is more than the total 
cost of the whole war between Russia and Turkey 



'See World Almanac 1915, p. 488. 

'The co«t of the war has been calculated by various vk-ritere on both aides 
of the Atlantic. Mr. Win. Rossitor writes on "The SUitistical Side of the 
Economic Coet.sof the War," in the .-ImfricoH Economit Review for March, 
1916. Mt. Kdmund Crammond's pnner in The Journal of the Royal Sta- 
tistical Socieiu, Sir Cieorge Paish in Ine various ijwucs of the London Sta- 
tist, and others, hjivc (riven careful (.stimates of ilic direct coet of the war 
to nations and individuals. DurinK the firtit and cheapest year, according 
to Mr. Rossiter, the total cont of the war, not including the economic value 
of the lives lout, ruse to forty billion dollars. That is equal to all the na- 
tional debts of the world. 



176 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

in 1828. In a single great day in the battles on 
the Somme, or in Belgium, the British have used 
as much ammunition as they were able to manu- 
facture in the entire first ten months of the war 
in 1914. 

Even before the end of 1915 the five great 
powers had more than doubled their national 
debts. When will these debts be paid? Great 
Britain, the wealthiest of the nations of Europe, 
after one hundred years of peace still owes much 
of the debt incurred in the American Revolution 
and all of the debt incurred in the Napoleonic 
Wars. The whole cost of the American Civil War 
was only |5,000,000,000, and of the Napoleonic 
Wars 16,000,000,000, while this war will cost over 
six times the amount of either during this single 
year. 

Great Britain's war debt at the end of the third 
year has reached the enormous total of more than 
$20,000,000,000, or twenty times the national debt 
of the United States at the beginning of the war, 
yet even this does not begin to exhaust her re- 
sources. At the close of the Napoleonic Wars 
Great Britain's debt was one-third of her national 
resources. She can almost double her present 
enormous war debt before utilizing a third of her 
wealth. 

We have not in this calculation reckoned on 
the economic value of the lives destroyed. That 
would average about |3,000 for each man. Five 
million men killed means an economic loss to the 



THE WORLD AT WAR 177 

countries concerned of |1 5,000,000,000. But tho 
economic value of the lives destroyed represents 
onl.v a small fraction of their potentiality — so- 
cially, morally, and sj)iritually. No human brain 
can calculate, no heart can fathom the cost or 
loss of this terrible conflict. 

The cost of less than one month of the present 
war would equal that of the entire Franco-Prus- 
sian War of 1870. Another month would pay for 
the whole Kusso-Japane.se War; twelve days would 
pay for the Boer War, while the cost for three 
days would dig the Panama Canal. At the be- 
ginning of 1018 the war debts of the warring coun- 
tries will exceed :i;90,000,000,000, or more than 
one-fifth the wealth of all the warring nations of 
Eurojie. The daily cost of the war is equal to 
half the earning power of these European nations, 
and the interest on their war debts will be equal 
to one-half their budgets as they stood at the be- 
ginning of the war. The wealth of more than 
twenty nations is being rapidly drained, and the 
world's financial reserves are being consumed in 
this vicious and sinful struggle which an auto- 
cratic militarism has forced upon the world. 

Although late in entering the war, America's 
e.Kpenditure has been out of all proportion to that 
of any other nation, l^pon arrival in this country 
the writer finds the statement in our press that 
the nation will have spent or sanctioned before 
the end of 1017. the enormous total of |19,000,- 
000,000. That is more than twenty per cent of 



178 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

the entire cost of the war to date for all the Euro- 
pean nations. That sum is as great as Germany 
spent on land and sea for the conduct of the first 
three years of the war. It represents more than 
twice our total wealth in 1850, and one-twelfth 
of our present national wealth of $228,000,000,000. 
In order to estimate further the cost and 
realize the suffering of the war, let us turn for 
a moment to the nations devastated in Europe. 
In Belgium and Northern France 9,500,000 were 
being fed by the Commission for Relief in Belgium 
until Germany forbade it. Of 7,000,000 inhabit- 
ants of Belgium, 3,000,000 were early left desti- 
tute by the war and were drawing daily one meal 
consisting of the equivalent of three thick slices 
of bread and a pint of soup. Mr. F. C. Wolcott 
writes : 

"I have seen thousands of people lined up in 
snow or rain, soaked and chilly, waiting for bread 
and soup. I have returned to the distributing 
stations at the end of the day and have found 
men, women, and children sometimes still stand- 
ing in line, but later compelled to go back to their 
pitiful homes, cold, wet, and miserable. It was 
not until eighteen weary hours afterward that 
they got the meal they missed. The need will 
continue to be great for many months after peace 
is declared. Factories have been stripped of their 
machinery. There is a complete stagnation of 
industry. It will take months to rehabilitate 
these industries and to start the wheels again." 

In Serbia more than 4,000,000 people were de- 



THE WORLD AT WAR 179 

prived of their living by the war. In I'oland the 
^^utlering has been more terrible than in either 
Belgium or Serbia. The population fleeing be- 
hind the retreating Rus.sian.s were not able to 
keep up because of the women and children, the 
aged and the sick. They were overtaken by the 
German army and left in the charred remains of 
their burned dwellings. Some 200 cities and 
15,000 towns and villages were destroyed in 
Poland. Already 2,000,000 have died of starva- 
tion there. In some districts all the children 
under six years of age have perished. 

Armenia has suffered relatively more than any 
of the other nations. Mr. Henry Morgenthau, 
the American Ambassador to Turkey, said : ''One 
million of these people have either been massacred 
or deported and unless succor reaches them 
shortly, those remaining will be lost." In all 
history there is no record more sad than that of 
the persecution and extermination of the Arme- 
nians. University professors educated in the 
United States have had their hair and nails torn 
out by the roots and have been slowly tortured to 
death. Women and girls were outraged and 
brutally killed. Little children perished of hun- 
ger. It is said that probably 1,000,000 of the 
2,000.000 Armenians in Turkey have been slain, 
or have been driven into the country to starve, 
or have been forced to accept Islam. 

The American Committee for Armenian and 
Syrian Relief reports : 



180 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

"Men in the army were the first to be brutally 
put to death. These and civilians, after being 
subjected to horrible tortures, were shot. Even 
priests were made victims of brutal murder. 
Women, children, the sick and aged, were forced 
at a moment's notice to start on foot on a journey 
of exile. Mothers, torn from their children, were 
compelled to leave the little ones behind. Women 
giving birth to children on the road were forbid- 
den to delay, but, under the whiplash, were made 
to continue their march until they dropped from 
exhaustion to die. A United States Consul re- 
ported that he saw helpless people brained with 
clubs, while children were killed by beating their 
brains out against the rocks. Other children were 
thrown into rivers and those who could swim 
were shot down as they struggled in the water. 
Crimes that have been, and are being, practiced 
upon Armenian women are too cruel and horrible 
for words. The mutilated corpses of hundreds 
bear testimony to this inhuman reign ."^ 

Who was responsible for these outrages, and 
how long will the world permit them to continue? 

Whichever way we turn, whether we survey the 
number of killed, wounded, or prisoners, the cost 
of the conflict, or the suffering of the devastated 
nations, we realize that tJie war means sacrifice. 
It is diflScult for us at home in America to appre- 
ciate the spirit in which the men in this great 
struggle in Europe are fighting, and the sacrifices 
they are making. In all these months in many 
lands, the writer has not heard from the lips of 



» See Appendix II on "The Treatment of Armenians," by Viscount Biyce. 



THE WOULD AT WAR 181 

a single soldier who had actually seen service at 
the front, words of hatred or of boasting. Quietly 
and often with sadness most of these men are 
going forward to face death. 

llere is a letter from a young ollicer who fell 
on that fatal lirst day of July on the Sonune. 

"I never felt more confident or cheerful in my 
life before, and would not miss the attack for 
anything on earth. lOvery otlicer and man is more 
hapi)y and cheerful than I have ever seen them. 
My idea in writing this letter is in case I am one 
of the 'costs' and get killed. I have been looking 
at the stars, and thinking what an immense dis- 
tance the}' are away. What an insignificant thing 
the loss of, say, forty years of life is compared 
with them! It seems scarcely worth talking 
about. Well, good-bye, you darlings. Try not 
to worry about it, and remember that we shall 
meet again really quite soon. This letter is go- 
ing to be poste<l if . . ." 

A friend of the writer, a young chaplain whom 
he met recently at the front, went out to find "his 
brother's mangled body on the battlefield. The 
boy who fell was the son of the Bishop of Win- 
chester, and one of the finest spirits in Oxford. 
Canon Scott Holland writes: 

"The attack had failed. There was never any 
hope of its succeeding, for the machine guns of 
the (icrnians were still in full play, with their fire 
nninii)airc<l. Tlie body had to lie where it had 
fallen. Only, his brother could not endure to let 
it lie nnhonoure<l. He found some shattered Som- 
ersets, who begged him to go no further. But he 



182 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

heard a voice within him bidding him risk it, 
and the call of the blood drove him on. Creep- 
ing out of the far end of the trench, as dusk fell, 
he crawled through the grass on hands and knees, 
in spite of shells and snipers, dropping flat on 
the ground as the flares shot up from the German 
trenches. At last he found what he sought. He 
could stroke with his hand the fair young head 
that he knew so well ; he could feel for the pocket- 
book and prayer-book, the badge and the whistle. 
He could breathe a prayer of benediction and 
then crawl back on his perilous way in the night." 

The writer has just come from visiting a group 
of a dozen British and American military hos- 
pitals in one French town, with from one to four 
thousand patients in each, where at this moment 
the trains are arriving in almost a steady stream, 
bearing the wounded from the front in the great 
drive in Flanders. He has stood by the operating 
tables and passed down those long, unending 
rows of cots. Some of these tragic hospital wards 
are filled with men, every one of whom is blinded 
for life by poison gas or shrapnel. They, like 
all the other wounded, are brave and cheerful, 
but it will take great courage to maintain this 
cheer, groping a long lifetime in the dark. One 
man counted 151 trains of twenty cars each, or 
3,000 carriages, filled with German wounded pass- 
ing back in a steady stream through Belgium. 
Behind all the active fronts these train loads of 
wounded are daily bearing their burden of suffer- 
ing humanity. The cities and towns of Europe 



THE WORLD AT WAR 18;i 

are filled with limping or crippled or wounded 
men today. 

Opposite the writer at the ship's table .sat a 
yoniiji; man with \\\v lower [tart of his face carried 
away, lli.s chin and jaw were gone, yet he must 
live on for a lifetime deformed. Another young 
fellow had spent seven long weary months in 
training. The moment his regiment reached the 
front it was ordered immediately into action. He 
sprang to the top of the trench, but never got 
over it. He fell back wounded. Within three 
days he was back in England again, but with only 
one leg. Seven months of training, five minutes 
in action, then crippled for life ! The writer saw 
one young fellow whose face was left contorted 
by shrapnel, which had carried away one eye and 
the bridge of his nose. He was a quiet, earnest 
Christian. He said, "Of course, they cannot send 
me back again into the line or compel me to go 
with only one eye, but 1 am going just the same. 
I am going to give all that I have left to the 
country and the cause."* 

Hear that young soldier of France, Alfred 
Casalis, a brilliant student of philosophy and 
theologj', a Student Volunteer for the African 
mission field, as he writes home to his father and 
mother at the age of nineteen: "1 volunteered of 
course. 1 know with an unalterable knowledge 



♦Publishers' Not*: The whole problem of the meanins of suflrring and 
its relation to the present war, espcciiilly for thoec who nave suflered be- 
reavcmcDt, is dealt with by the author in his book, "Suffering and the 
War." 



184 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

and with an unconquerable confidence that the 
foundation of my faith is unshakeable, it rests 
upon the Rock. I shall fight with a good con- 
science and without fear (I hope), certainly with- 
out hate. I feel myself filled with an illimitable 
hope. You can have no idea of the peace in which 
I live. On the march I sing inwardly. I listen 
to the music that is slumbering inside me. The 
Master's call is always ringing loudly in my ears. 
I am not afraid of death. I have made the sacri- 
fice of my life. I know that to die is to begin 
to live." And the last sentence of the unfinished 
letter written before the charge in which he fell, 
"The attack cannot but succeed. There will be 
some wounded, some killed, but we shall go for- 
ward and far — " In the other pocket of his coat, 
at the end of his will were the words, " 'I have 
fought the good fight, I have finished my course, 
I have kept the faith.' And I would that all my 
friends, all those who are every moment with me, 
and whose hearts beat with mine, should repeat 
the word of our hope, 'Because I live, ye shall live 
also.' "5 

Professor Gilbert Murray, of Oxford, writes 
thus of the sacrifice of the men for us: "As for 
me personally, there is one thought that is always 
with me — the thought that other men are dying 
for me, better men, younger, with more hope in 
their lives, many of whom I have taught and 



6 "For France and the Faith," Letters of Alfred EugSne Casalia, Associa- 
tion Press. 



THE WOKLl) AT WAR 185 

loved. The ortliodox Christian will be familiar 
with the thought of One who loved you dying for 
you, I would like to say that now I seem to be 
familiar with (he feeling that something innocent, 
something great, something that loved me, is 
dying, and is dying daily for me. That is the sort 
of community we now are — a community in which 
one man dies for his brother." 

Yes, these boys are making the great sacrifice 
for us. Witli r),()()(),()00 who have already been 
killed, with 10,000,000 of our own sons enrolled 
as subject to their call to the colors when needed, 
with hundrcHls of American army camps at home 
and in France already crowded with men, what 
sacrifice can we make for them? How can we 
surround their lives with the best influences of 
home, that they may come back to us even better 
men than when they went away? 

We have seen the terrible ordeal to which they 
will be subjected at the front, the temptations to 
which they are exposed in France, in the training 
schools, and the base camps ; we have seen some- 
thing of the havoc which demoralizing forces have 
already wrought in other armies in the camps 
of the prodigals, and we have seen the deadly 
dangers and peril.s, both physical and moral, 
which the soldier must face. We have spoken of 
the enormous sums voted to carry on a grejit war 
of destruction. Is there not a yet more urgent 
need that we should supply the great construc- 
tive forces for fortifying the physical and moral 



186 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

manhood of our nation ? Two organizations have 
been recognized by our own and the other allied 
governments in the war zone — the one bearing 
the symbol of the red cross for the wounded, and 
the other the red triangle for the fighting men. 

The nation has already generously responded 
to the needs of the wounded even before the first 
battle was fought, giving more in one week than 
any other nation in a year for the same purpose. 
And not a dollar too much has been given for this 
great cause. But we shall soon have several 
millions of fighting men under arms. What are 
we to do for these men? We have already seen 
that they present a threefold need. There is the 
physical need of these millions who will soon be 
training, fighting, and suffering. Only the men 
at the front know what it really is. There are 
the mental and social requirements of men who 
must have recreation, healthy amusement and 
occupation. There is also the moral and spiritual 
need of men who will face the greatest tempta- 
tions of their lives, when they will be farthest 
from the help of home and friends, while old 
standards seem to be submerged or swept away 
"for the period of the war." 

We have already seen that the building that 
bears the red triangle of the Y M C A at the front 
is at once the soldier's club, his home, his church 
where his own denomination holds its services, 
his school, his place of rest, his recreation center, 
his bank and postoffice where he writes his letters, 



THE WORLD AT WAR 187 

his friend in need that stands by him at the last 

and meets his relatives wlio are called to his bed- 
side in the hospital. If there is anything which 
safeguards the physical, social, and moral health 
of the men who are dying for us, can we do less 
than provide it for them? While billions are 
being spent for destruction, must we not at least 
invest an intinitesimal fraction of one per cent 
of our expenditure, in construction, in that which 
is the gi'eatest asset of any nation — its moral 
manhood? Can we not provide a home away 
from home for our own sons and the other boys 
with them whose parents may be too poor to 
do so? 

Here is a unique contribution which America 
can also make to her hard pressed allies who have 
l>een exhausted by three terrible years of fighting. 
Britain has already set us a wonderful example 
and will not need our help. But there is France 
to which we owe so much and whose war weary 
soldiers sorely need just such centers for recrea- 
tion and rebuilding. General Petain, the Com- 
mander in Chief, and the French authorities have 
asked for the help of our Movement in their 
camps. General I'ershing, after surveying the 
tield, has declared that the greatest service which 
America can immediately render France, even 
before our own men can reach the trenches in 
large numbers, is to extend the welfare work of 
the YMCA to the entire French Army. Can we 
do less than this for the nation that gave all that 



188 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

Washington asked in our own hour of crisis? 
Then there is Italy, with all her deep need and 
great possibilities. What can we do to minister 
to the wants of her great army ? 

But let us turn to Russia, which represents the 
deepest need of all — the nation which has under- 
gone the greatest suffering, both within and with- 
out its borders, of any of the belligerents. Think 
of its vast area, greater than all North America, 
or one seventh of the land area of the entire globe. 
Think of its population, almost twice our own, 
and more than one tenth of the entire world. 
Think of these people, who have the greatest 
capacity for suffering of any nation on earth, 
suddenly released, like their own prisoners, with 
steps unsteady and eyes unaccustomed to the 
blinding light of freedom. Think of what such 
a movement of hope and cheer and re-creation 
may mean to troops hard pressed or demoralized, 
facing another winter in the trenches. 

Add to all these the suffering prisoners of war, 
and we have over 24,000,000 men who deeply need 
the ministry of this Movement, and need it now. 
Here are millions who have already suffered or 
who are going forward ready to make the great 
sacrifice for us. What sacrifice shall we make 
for them? 



APPENDIX I 
EXTRACTS FROM "ETERNAL PEACE" 

BY 

IMMANUEL KANT 

"No conclusion of peace shall be held to be 
valid as such when it has been made with the 
secret reservation of the material for a future 
war. No State having an existence by itself — 
whether it be small or large — shall be acquired 
by another State through inheritance, exchange, 
purchase, or donation. A State is not to be re- 
garded as property or patrimony, like the soil 
on which it may be settled. Standing armies shall 
be entirely' abolished in the course of time. For 
they threaten other States incessantly with war 
by their appearing to be always equipped to enter 
upon it. No State shall intermeddle by force with 
the constitution or government of another State. 

"No State at war with another shall adopt such 
modes of hostility as would necessarily render 
mutual confidence impossible in a future peace — 
such as the employment of assassins or poisonei*s, 
the violation of a capitulation, the instigation of 
treason, and such like. These are <lishon()rable 
stratagems. For there must be some trust in the 
habit and <lisposition even of an enemy in war. 

"The civil constitution in every State shall be 

republican. The law of nations shall be founded 

on a federation of free States. People or nations 

regarded as States may be judged like individual 

189 



190 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

men. If it is a duty to realize a state of public 
law, and if at the same time there is a well- 
grounded hope of its being realized — although it 
may be only by approximation to it that advances 
ad infinitum — then perpetual peace is a fact that 
is destined historically to follow the falsely so- 
called treaties of peace which have been but ces- 
sations of hostilities. Perpetual peace is, there- 
fore, no empty idea, but a practical thing which, 
through its gradual solution, is coming always 
nearer its final realization; and it may well be 
hoped that progress toward it will be made at 
more rapid rates of advance in the times to 
come."i 

'English Edition— Pages 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 76, 81, 127. 



APPENDIX II 

EXTRACTS FROM "THE TREATMENT OF 
ARMENIANS" 

BY 

VISCOUNT BRYCE 

From Four Members of the German Missions 
Staff in Tiirkej' to the Imperial German Ministry 
of Foreign Affairs at Berlin: ''Out of 2,000 to 
3,000 peasant women from the Armenian Plateau 
who were brought here in good health, only fort^' 
or fifty skeletons are left. The prettier ones are 
the victims of their gaolers' lust; the plain ones 
succumb to blows, hunger, and thirst. Every day 
more than a hundred corpses are carried out of 
Aleppo. All this happened under the eyes of high 
Turkish otticials. The German scutcheon is in 
danger of being smirched for ever in the memory 
of the Near Eastern peoples.'' 

Events in Armenia, published in the Sonnen- 
aiifgatuj, and in the AUfjcmeine MissionsZcit- 
schrift, November, 1915: "Twelve hundred of the 
most i)roininent Armenians and other Christians 
were arrested; ()74 of them were end)arked on 
thirteen Tigris barges, the prisoners were striitped 
of all their money and then of their clothes; after 
that they were thrown into the river. Five or 
six priests were stripped naked one day. smearetl 
with tar, and dragged through the streets. For 
a whole month corjises were observetl floating 
down the River ICuphrates, hideously mutilated. 

191 



192 WITH OUR SOLDIERS IN FRANCE 

The prisons at Biredjik are filled regularly every 
day and emptied every night — into the Eu- 
phrates." . . . 

From a German eye-witness: "In Moush there 
are 25,000 Armenians; in the neighborhood there 
are 300 villages, each containing about 500 houses. 
In all these not a single male Armenian is now 
to be seen, and hardly a woman. Every officer 
boasted of the number he had personally mas- 
sacred. In Harpout the people have had to en- 
dure terrible tortures. They have had their eye- 
brows plucked out, their breasts cut off, their 
nails torn off. Their torturers hew ofif their feet 
or else hammer nails into them just as they do in 
shoeing horses. When they die, the soldiers cry : 
'Now let your Christ help you.' " 

Memorandum forwarded by a foreign resident 
at H.: "On the 1st of June, 3,000 people (mostly 
women, girls, and children) left H. accompanied 
by seventy policemen. The policemen many times 
violated the women openly. Another convoy of 
exiles joined the party, 18,000 in all. The journey 
began, and on the way the pretty girls were car- 
ried off one by one, while the stragglers from the 
convoy were invariably killed. On the fortieth 
day the convoy came in sight of the Euphrates. 
Here they saw the bodies of more than 200 men 
floating in the river. Here the Kurds took from 
them everything they had, so that for five days 
the whole convoy marched completely naked 
under the scorching sun. For another five days 
they did not have a morsel of bread, nor even 
a drop of water. They were scorched to death 
by thirst. Hundreds upon hundreds fell dead on 
the way, their tongues were turned to charcoal, 
and when, at the end of five days, they reached 
a fountain, the whole convoy naturally rushed 



APPENDIX II 19;i 

towards it. But here the policemen barred the 
way and forbade them to take a single drop of 
water. At another place where there were wells, 
some women threw themselves into them, as there 
was no rope or pail to draw up the water. These 
women were drowned, the <lead bodies still re- 
mainin}; there stinking in the water, and yet the 
rest of the people later drank from that well. On 
the sixty-fourth day, they feathered together all 
the men and sick Avomen and children and burne<l 
and killed them all. On the seventieth day, when 
they reached Aleppo, there were left 150 women 
and children altogether out of the whole convoy 
of 18,000." 



APPENDIX III 

LINES WRITTEN BY A SOLDIER IN THE 
ENGLISH ARMY ABOUT MARCH, 1916. 

Christ in Flanders 

"We had forgotten You or very nearly, 
You did not seem to touch us very nearly. 

Of course we thought about You now and then 
Especially in any time of trouble, 
We know that You were good in time of trouble 

But we are very ordinary men. 



And there were always other things to think of, 
There's lots of things a man has got to think of, 

His work, his home, his pleasure and his wife 
And so we only thought of You on Sunday ; 
Sometimes perhaps not even on a Sunday 

Because there's always lots to fill one's life. 



And all the while, in street or lane or byway 
In country lane in city street or byway 

You walked among us, and we did not see. 
Your feet were bleeding, as You walked our pave- 
ments 
How did we miss Your foot-prints on our pave- 
ments ; 
Can there be other folk as blind as we? 
194 



APPENDIX III 195 

Now we rcnieniber over here in Flanders 
(It isn't strange to think of You in Flanders) 
This hideous warfare seems to make things 
clear, 
We never thought about You much in l']ngland 
But now that we are far away from England 
We have no doubts — we knoio that You are 
here. 



Y'ou helped us pass the jest along the trenches 
Where, in cold blood, we waited in the trenches, 

Y'ou touched its ribaldry and made it fine. 
You stood beside us in our pain and weakness. 
We're glad to think I'ou understand our weak- 
ness. 

Somehow it seems to help us not to whine. 

We think about You kneeling in the Garden 
Ah ! God, the agony of that dread Garden ; 

We know you prayed for us upon the Cross. 
If anything could make us glad to bear it 
'Twould be the knowledge, that Y''ou willed to 
bear it 

Pain, death, the uttermost of human loss. 

Tho' we forgot You, Y'ou will not forget us. 
We feel so sure that Y'ou will not forget us. 

But stay with us until this dream is past — 
And so we ask for courage, strength, and pardon, 
Especially I think, we ask for pardon, 

And that Y'ou'll stand beside us to the last." 



APPENDIX IV 

LETTER FROM LORD KITCHENER TO HIS 
MEN 

"You are ordered abroad as a soldier of the 
King to help our French comrades against the 
invasion of a common enemy. You have to per- 
form a task which will need your courage, your 
energy, your patience. Remember that the honor 
of the British Army depends upon your individ- 
ual conduct. It will be your duty not only to set 
an example of discipline and perfect steadiness 
under fire, but also to maintain the most friendly 
relations with those whom you are helping in this 
struggle. The operations in which you are en- 
gaged will, for the most part, take place in a 
friendly country, and you can do your own coun- 
try no better service than in showing yourself, 
in France and Belgium, in the true character of 
a British soldier. 

Be invariably courteous, considerate, and kind. 
Never do anything likely to injure or destroy 
property, and always look upon looting as a dis- 
graceful act. You are sure to meet with a wel- 
come and to be trusted; and your conduct must 
justify that welcome and that trust. Your duty 
cannot be done unless your health is sound. So 
keep constantly on your guard against any ex- 
cesses. In this new experience you may find 
temptations both in wine and women. You must 
entirely resist both temptations, and while treat- 
196 



ArrENDIX IV 197 

ing all womon with perfect courtesy, you should 
av()i<l any inliinacy. 
Do your duty bravely. 
Fear God. 
Honor the King." 

Kitchener, 

Field-Marshal. 



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